


Justice of the Forest

by AfricanDaisy



Series: The Iathrim Chronicles [8]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Child Abuse, Corporal Punishment, Discipline, Elves, Father-Son Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Original Character(s), Second Age, Sexual Abuse, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:35:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 11
Words: 57,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24497308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AfricanDaisy/pseuds/AfricanDaisy
Summary: Five years have passed since Elder Faelind adopted a former thief as his son. Together they have navigated tricky waters, one learning to be a father and the other learning to be loved. But when one has survived the horrors that Luthavar has, fresh terrors are never far away.
Series: The Iathrim Chronicles [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/25743
Comments: 57
Kudos: 61





	1. Chapter 1

Every night at ten o’clock, Luthavar Faelindion kissed his father goodnight and went to bed. There were some exceptions to that rule. If Lutha had slept poorly the night before, or if he had an early start the next day, or indeed if he had misbehaved, Faelind may send him to bed early. If it was a special occasion or father and son were deep in conversation, Faelind was often known to exercise his discretion and allow Lutha a later bedtime. Tonight, bedtime was neither earlier nor later. It was ten o’clock precisely. There was the kiss on the cheek, a hug, and the usual ‘sleep well, my little boy,’ followed by Lutha making his way upstairs. Faelind would listen out for the click of his son’s bedroom door, and when he heard it he would pour himself a glass of pear brandy and go to his study.

Once upon a time, Faelind had spent hour after hour every evening shut away in his study with his head bowed over his books, working diligently until the sun disappeared and he had to leave his work with a huff of annoyance to light the lamps. Then he would work some more, and some more, and some more again, until the stars faded and the sky took on a rosy hue that rendered the lamps redundant. There might come an hour or two of sleep then, if Faelind had felt that it was necessary, and then the day would begin again. He no longer did any of that. The work day ended at six o’clock and the evenings were only for Lutha. Faelind didn’t begrudge a single moment spent in his son’s company. And when he returned to his study once Lutha was abed, it wasn’t to resume his work, but instead to write about Lutha; the mischief the elfling had got up to, the new things he had learned, the funny things he had said, the positive steps he had made or the occasional setback that still cropped up five years after Faelind had adopted him. And, indeed, the things that Faelind himself had learned from or about Lutha, for he still found that there was so much for him to learn about his son, and he never tired of that.

At the stroke of midnight, Faelind locked his journal away and turned down all the lamps, and then came the next part of the nightly routine. He went upstairs and quietly opened Lutha’s bedroom door, lingering there for a moment as he gazed in at his sleeping son. Lutha was safely abed and fast asleep – Faelind had learned to tell when Lutha was pretending – and all was well with the world. He stepped back and started to pull the door shut, only to stop an inch away from trapping his cat’s paw in the door as she tried to slip past him into the room. Fanuilos looked up at him with a flick of her bushy tail and a blink of her blue eyes as if she’d not chosen the very last moment at which she could have entered the room.

“Go on then, Your Majesty,” Faelind whispered to her, pushing the door further open again. He watched Fanuilos saunter in and leap soundlessly onto the bed where she turned in a circle a few times before settling down next to Lutha. The sound of her purring filled the room as she gently kneaded Lutha’s shoulder through the blankets. Lutha sighed softly in his sleep and wrapped his arm around Fanuilos. The scene brought a sudden sense of contentment to Faelind. There was one thing missing, and that hole could never be filled, but even without his beloved wife he couldn’t help but feel that life was good.

Faelind pulled the door to and left it slightly ajar for Fanuilos to depart as she liked and finally he went to his own room and closed the door behind him. When he had made ready to rest, hair tied out of his face and a silk and brocade dressing robe tied loosely over his shirt and leggings, he sat on the carved chest at the foot of his bed and looked up into the blue eyes that gazed out of his wife’s portrait. “Midhaearien.” He breathed her name into the midnight stillness. He didn’t always talk to her but sometimes it was pleasant to imagine that somehow, somewhere, she was hearing him.

“Luthavar and I had dinner at The Mysterious Deer this evening. I know, the third time this month. I am led to believe that it is because Luthavar has a liking for their strawberry and cream meringues but I see how he blushes when the innkeeper’s daughter smiles at him.” Faelind shook his head ruefully as he idly twisted the truth ring that he wore on the fourth finger of his right hand. Generally he didn’t condone even the smallest of untruths from his son, but an elfling’s secret infatuation was something that he could indulge. “I expect nothing to come of it. Luthavar is young yet and his unhappy childhood experiences may present some difficulties for him in areas of romance.”

Midhaearien’s blue eyes almost seemed to darken in sympathy as her portrait gazed down at Faelind. He sighed softly and gave in to the smile that he had felt coming. “How you would adore him, beloved. I will always regret what we lost the night that you were taken from me – all the plans we had, the things we wanted and should have had. But Luthavar brings me great joy. Joy such as I have not known since you were here with me. Indeed, that I never expected to know again. It is not always easy. Luthavar sometimes suffers from night terrors. Some he tells me of. Some not. But always when he wakes from them, I see the fear in his eyes and it pains me to feel so helpless. I must often be stern with him. It is not my favourite part of being his father, but it is important. And Luthavar…” Faelind paused, propping his chin in one hand as he considered. “I do not say that Luthavar invites trouble, but sometimes it seems to me that he needs the security that comes with loving discipline and so he pushes until I have no choice but to give it to him.”

Now that he had voiced his musings aloud, Faelind decided that not only were they accurate but that he could identify with them to some extent. His own father had been an unforgiving and severe ellon, so much so that Faelind as a boy had greatly feared the paternal disapproval that his wild and rebellious behaviour had often incurred. When he had begun training with the Protectors of Greenwood, a cheerful elf called Captain-Protector Belthamdir had taken a liking to him. Belthamdir had helped to settle the youthful Faelind – somewhat, at least. And if he had not been willing to overlook misbehaviour, he _had_ always been happy to keep word of it from reaching Elder Elrain. That, Faelind had been grateful for. The fact that Belthamdir had always put an arm around his shoulders and given him a hug after delivering discipline had not just been a warming experience for his younger self but a strangely novel one too.

“I think I can understand that aspect of Luthavar, beloved. You know how my father was,” Faelind said aloud, shifting his gaze back to the portrait. “But for all the challenges, I would not change Luthavar. I would take all the pain from his past if I could but I would not change _him._ I took him as he was. He is my son.” Faelind stopped again, unable to help the smile that curved his lips as he admitted to his wife, “Five years is not enough to stop the thrill that those words send through me.”

The thrill that came next was not one of joy or delight but instead a jolt so sharp that it felt like the moment of false cold a split second before scalding water burns. Catching his breath, Faelind rose and swept from the room with not a backwards glance at the portrait of his lost wife. So swiftly did he move that his robe billowed out behind him as if caught on a breeze. He went straight to his son’s room and sat on the edge of the bed, only peripherally aware of Fanuilos hunched in the corner with her ears flat and her tail lashing at the screams of terror that cut through the formerly peaceful night.

“Luthavar.” Faelind spoke firmly as the covers twisted themselves around the elfling’s thrashing body. Tears shone on Luthavar’s cheeks and his hair was a tangled mess. “Luthavar, wake up. It is a dream. Just a dream. You are safe and your father is here. Come back to me, my little boy. Come back now.”

It felt like an hour but surely could only have been half a minute before Lutha awoke with a frightened cry. His eyes went wide as he realised that he wasn’t alone, and Faelind felt a moment of agony at the fear in them. Instinct blinded Lutha and he tried to scrabble backwards, lashing out with a flailing arm that Faelind gently intercepted and swept away with the back of his own forearm before it could hit him. He did it for Lutha, not for himself. He could take a hit from a panicked elfling, but when the panic was over and the elfling knew what he had done, there would be guilt to assuage and even more tears to dry. “Luthavar, be still,” Faelind said softly. “I am here. Ada is here.”

“Ada?” Lutha breathed into the night.

Faelind nodded wordlessly and opened his arms. Needing no further invitation, Lutha stifled a sob as he threw himself into them. Faelind asked no questions. He just held Lutha in his arms and spoke quietly to him, soothing him, gently smoothing the tangles from his dishevelled hair. He couldn’t imagine what painful memory had forced its way into Lutha’s dreams but he didn’t need to know right then. In that moment, it didn’t matter. It would come later. All that mattered then was wrapping Lutha in his arms and his love. Fanuilos joined them, an anxious trill to her purr as she sat beside them and rubbed her head against Lutha’s side.

“Did I wake you?” Lutha asked finally, his voice husky.

“No, my little boy. It is well. Let us go downstairs.”

Faelind helped Lutha out of the tangled blankets and put an arm around his shoulders to guide him from the room with Fanuilos sleeking along in front of them. He settled Lutha on the sofa in the living room, and after he had turned the glow of the lamps to a soothing and cosy half strength, he paused in the doorway to look back at his son. Lutha was a picture of rigidity from head to foot, jaw clenched and shoulders tight. In his lap, both hands were curled into fists. The anger that sometimes came upon him at the audacity of his past to infiltrate his present sparked in his grey eyes, but fear and pain flickered there too. Faelind breathed out quietly and turned away as Fanuilos soundlessly leapt onto Lutha’s lap and bumped her head against his cheek. Right then, he felt that the cat could do more for Lutha than he could.

Leaving cat and boy alone together, Faelind went to the kitchen and tried to find ways to keep busy while water heated for a soothing tea. He straightened a chair at the table and ran a damp cloth over the counter tops even though the marble surfaces had already gleamed and his housekeeper would have taken offence to the very idea that they needed more attention. Then he opened one of the cupboards and unnecessarily moved the biscuit jar from the lower shelf to the top shelf before remembering that Lutha had to stand on tiptoes to reach the higher up things. He put the jar back where it belonged. Finally, he settled for staring out of the window into the darkness with his arms folded across his chest as he prepared himself for what was to come.

The truth was, when Lutha spoke of his night terrors, it made Faelind feel as useless as he did when he thought of those who had murdered his wife and escaped justice. He had been powerless then and he was powerless now, and that was a difficult thing for an elf not accustomed to feeling that way. But it was the truth. There was nobody to judge. Nobody to sentence. Not a soul to punish. Just invisible spectres lingering tauntingly out of reach. It didn’t feel enough to simply be there for Lutha, to hold him and offer him gentle words and a handkerchief to dry his tears. Telling him that those who had hurt him were long gone and would never hurt him again just felt empty. But what else was there? Faelind couldn’t bring them back to face justice. He couldn’t change what had happened. _If only,_ he thought, his heart clenching.

The water boiled and Faelind made a cup of lemon balm tea sweetened with honey. When he took it back to the living room he was relieved to see that some of the tension had fled Lutha’s body and his breathing had evened out. He sat on the edge of the low table in front of the settee and gave the tea to Lutha, watching as his son wrapped both hands around the warm cup. “Did you put honey in it?” Lutha asked quietly.

“Of course,” Faelind promised.

Lutha nodded silently and lifted the cup closer to his face. He didn’t drink from it but simply closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. “I dreamed of Harad. I was only twenty-five.”

“In the dream or in truth?” Faelind asked softly.

“Both,” Lutha whispered. He glanced up at his father but Faelind said nothing. Silence was often the best way to encourage speaking. Lutha responded to the silence, taking a breath and continuing quietly. “The Clan never went to Harad or Khand. Not as a whole. But a select number of men and a few women would travel to those places every couple of years and catch up with us somewhere else. I never knew for sure what their dealings were with the Haradric and Khandian people but…well, it was bad. It involved people. I think trading them to be slaves or…or worse.”

Faelind had a feeling that the fate of those unfortunate souls was not the crux of the matter, but he asked the question anyway. “Worse, my little boy?”

It took Lutha some time to answer. Staring into the steam gently rising from his cup, he said, “My human sister Svala told me a story once about people being sold for their body parts to be used in ancient magic. She was always mean to me so I thought she must be lying. But she told me to ask Fynn to see for myself because he was always good to me and _he_ wouldn’t lie. When I asked Fynn, he got this strange look on his face. It was really quick but I saw it. Then he tried to cover it by grabbing me and tickling me, and making some joke about gobbling me up if I kept pestering him. I was scared to ask after that in case it was true. I couldn’t imagine something so horrible and I wasn’t sure what I could do to help and…”

“You couldn’t have done anything, Luthavar,” Faelind said quietly.

“Probably not,” the elfling conceded with an unhappy sigh. “So, Mama Bera died when I was twenty-three. I was made to go on the next expedition into Harad after she died even though no children of the Clan had ever gone there before. I think…I think that Mama Bera being alive was my protection from those expeditions. She could never protect me from beatings or anything else that went on, but she must have had some sort of agreement with Father Thorir to stop him from sending me into Harad. I don’t know. But she was gone and I was sent there. My second eldest brother Kori took me to the palace and presented me to the Malik of Harad. He left me there while he conducted his own business. Whatever it was.”

“And the Malik of Harad hurt you,” Faelind murmured, outwardly as calm as a millpond whilst rage burned inside.

Lutha gave a small and tight nod. “He liked boys. He wanted to know what it was like to have an elven boy. As if it could really be _that_ different.”

“How long?” Faelind asked softly.

“A week,” Lutha replied, his voice flat. “He made me do things to him. He did things to me. Things that hurt and made me bleed. I didn’t always care too much because he made me breathe in smoke and it made me compliant. I would have been compliant anyway. It isn’t like I had a choice. He told me that if I behaved I wouldn’t have to be afraid, but if I didn’t…well, he didn’t say anything. He just showed me a knife and asked if I was going to be a good boy. I believed – and I still believe – that he could have done anything he wanted. He could have mutilated me or killed me, and even the Clan at its strongest couldn’t have done a thing about it. He was the Malik of Harad. The _King._ Untouchable. So I was a good boy. Yes, I was. I was a good boy then, and when the Malik of Harad contracted me again when I was thirty, and thirty-eight, and forty-five and fifty-six, I was still a good boy.”

“You are a good boy, Luthavar,” Faelind said gently. He moved to sit next to Lutha and put an arm around his son’s slender shoulders. For comfort and security, yes, but also because he wasn’t certain that he could keep his fury and desire for vengeance from showing in his gaze. He didn’t want Lutha to look straight at him and see that. “Do you dream often of your time with this Malik of Harad?”

“I never used to. For years I never even thought about it. My mind just didn’t want to go there,” Lutha replied. “But recently I have been dreaming about it a lot. It started off once or twice a month. Then once or twice a week. Now I dream of him most nights.”

Faelind was so appalled that for a moment he just stared at his son in shock. “Luthavar!” he said finally. “You have not told me a thing about this. Not a thing!”

“I know,” Lutha said miserably, hunching his shoulders and making himself small. “Everything was so good and we were so happy. I didn’t want to ruin it. I didn’t want to upset you or make you worry.”

“No.” Faelind didn’t have to try hard to make his voice stern. “I understand that you will not always want to tell me everything. It is your right to keep your own counsel if you wish. But you should have told me about this, Luthavar Faelindion, and it disappoints me that you did not. I am your father. It is my _duty_ to worry about you. I cannot help you and take care of you properly if you keep this sort of thing to yourself.”

“Don’t be mad with me,” Lutha pleaded in an unhappy whisper.

Faelind sighed and took the cup of lemon balm tea from Lutha’s hands to place it on the table instead. “I am not _mad_ with you,” he said quietly, drawing Lutha into his arms and holding him close. “It pains me that you have gone through this night after night without me. And,” he added, as a thought occurred to him, “that you have lied to me consistently. I ask you every morning if you slept well. You have always told me that you have.”

“I never actually said that I had slept well any of those times. I just said _mmm_ and you interpreted that however you liked,” Lutha clarified, his face hidden against Faelind’s chest. “That’s not my fault. And those lies were actually just half lies because, up until the nightmare came, I had slept well the rest of the night. And it’s not my fault either that you fall for a lie when you wear a ring specifically meant to catch people out in lies.”

Faelind took advantage of Lutha not being able to see his face to roll his eyes towards the ceiling. “Well, my clever little boy, from now on I shall be sure to ask _how_ you slept so that you must properly verbalise an answer. Consider also that the reason I do not look at the ring to see if you are telling a truth or a lie is because I trust you more than that.”

“Now are you mad with me?” Lutha asked curiously.

“I am exasperated,” Faelind decided after a moment. He drew back and returned the cup to Lutha’s hands. “Drink your tea before it goes cold. Now, why do you think that you are dreaming so frequently of your time in Harad?”

Lutha obediently sipped his lemon balm tea and his gaze went distant as he thought about the question. “In most of the dream I’m twenty-five like I was the first time. But by the end of the dream, I’m me as I am now and he comes here to Greenwood to find me. It seems so real that when I’m awake during the day, I half expect to walk along the path and see him rounding the corner up ahead. I suppose because I’m thinking about him so much during the day, he haunts my dreams much more often at night.”

“You said that your last time with him was when you were fifty-six,” Faelind gently reminded his son. “Now you are seventy-three. Seventeen years is a long time for mortals. Much could have happened to him.”

“No,” Lutha breathed, and his grey eyes were haunted. “Not long before the Clan was massacred, Father Vali told me that the Malik had contracted me again and I would have to return to Harad for his seventieth birthday.”

“Then now he is seventy-five,” Faelind said. “He is no longer a young man, Luthavar. Not even a man in his prime.”

“No!” Lutha repeated. “He isn’t dead. I would know if he was gone. I think that the world would feel brighter and happier. Does that sound stupid?”

Sighing softly, Faelind shook his head. “What was his name?”

“I don’t know.” Lutha cast his eyes downwards. “I was only ever allowed to call him _Master.”_

Faelind put his arm back around Lutha’s shoulders and gave him a gentle squeeze. He could tell that the admission had embarrassed the elfling. “I believe the current ruler of Harad to be a man by the name of Malik Jasim. Greenwood has not had dealings with Harad since the formerly benevolent regime was toppled three hundred years ago by an uprising that placed the crown on the head of a cruel and barbaric man whose descendants have ruled ever since. We cannot go to war over the culture of another land but we can impose sanctions by cutting off trade. Your grandmother reviews the matter whenever the crown is passed on. She authorises the sanctions to remain in place if he who inherits is no better than his father before him. She will know more than anyone who rules now in Harad and what the fate of this man who hurt you so has been.”

“And if he still lives?” Lutha asked softly. “What then?”

“Then you remain here in Greenwood where you are safe and loved,” Faelind replied. “You trust me to protect you. That is all. I promise you, Luthavar: that man is never going to hurt you again. He is never going to find you. He is never going to look upon you or touch you. Do you understand me? Never.”

“Double promise,” Lutha whispered.

“I shall double promise every day for the next fifty years if that is what it takes,” Faelind said.

Lutha laughed softly. “You don’t have to do that.”

Faelind offered a small smile in return, and he waited until his son had finished the lemon balm tea before speaking again. “Would you like me to talk with Nestorion about mind healing?”

“I already did mind healing,” Lutha complained.

“Yes. Nestorion told you that there was no limit on how often you could seek it,” Faelind pointed out. “I will not push you into it, but do remember that the option is there. It does not matter that you have gone through mind healing before. There is no shame in asking for help.”

“Yes, Ada,” Lutha agreed dutifully.

“Good, my little boy,” Faelind murmured. “Now, do you think that you can try going back to bed?”

Lutha nodded, and as if the thought of his bed had called it, a yawn made itself known and he stifled it with the back of his hand. There was a chill in the air when they got back to his room, so once Faelind had untangled the blankets and drawn them back for Lutha to climb into bed, he closed the window. As he was doing so, Lutha watched him and spoke softly. “Can I ask a question?”

“Please do,” Faelind replied, latching the window.

“Do you ever feel…ashamed of me when I tell you about these things?” Lutha asked, his voice still a soft breath. “Or disgusted by me?”

Faelind turned sharply, the hem of his robe swishing about his feet. “How can you ask me that?”

“Because it’s horrible.” Sitting up in bed with his arms wrapped around his knees, Lutha cast his eyes downwards. “And because I’m ashamed of the things that I did.”

“The things that you _did?”_ Faelind repeated, crossing to the bed in a few quick strides and sitting on the edge of it. “What things did you do that were not forced upon you? Hmm? Can you tell me one apparently shameful thing that you did only because you wanted to do it or because you could? By the laws of our people, you were not capable of consenting to a single one of those things. You still are not capable. You were a child, Luthavar. A child forced into unimaginable situations and made to endure the very worst of humanity simply to survive.”

“But it’s horrible.”

“Yes,” Faelind agreed, nodding gravely to his son’s anguished insistence. “It is. But you are not.”

“What if people knew?” Lutha asked quietly. “They might look at me differently. They might think that I’m…dirty. Or ruined.”

“People do know. I know. Your grandmother knows,” Faelind gently reminded the elfling. “Alphros and Galadaelin, Nestorion and Feredir and Nithaniel, the other Elders…they all know. Have you ever seen such feelings in our eyes?”

Lutha glanced up briefly to meet Faelind’s emerald gaze. “No.”

“No,” Faelind echoed lovingly. He reached out and cupped Lutha’s cheek with his hand. “Nobody else need ever know of your past. If anyone else does join that group of people privileged enough to know, it will be because they love you unconditionally and you trust them enough to give them this part of yourself. That will be a truly special bond, Luthavar. And if one day you fall in love, he or she will accept you as well. All of you.”

“Fanuilos knows too,” Lutha offered after a moment, as the cat in question ghosted into the room and jumped up to sit at his side.

“What did she have to say about it?” Faelind asked.

“Not much,” Lutha replied. “She just swished her tail a bit, brought me a leaf, and purred.”

Faelind nodded to that and briefly scratched Fanuilos behind her ears in wordless thanks for being there for Lutha in her own feline way. “Sleep now. Do not concern yourself with rising early in the morning. Breakfast will be there whenever you wake.”

“I know,” Lutha said softly, snuggling into the covers as he lay on his side and hugged Fanuilos close. “Goodnight, Ada. I love you.”

“I love you, my little boy.” Faelind leaned down to press a gentle kiss to Lutha’s temple, and on his way out of the room he turned the lamp down to a dim glow. As he went down the hallway to his own room, he felt his face settle into the mask of cold rage that he had been fighting ever since Lutha had started telling his story. It was the worst kind of rage, Faelind thought; useless, impotent, pointless, with not a single outlet to pour it into. That so many people could do so much damage and yet escape justice…it went against everything that he believed in. He supposed that the Clan had finally got some sort of comeuppance when a rival band of criminals had massacred them. But the others? The nameless and faceless men and women who had paid to rape a child? The ones who had visited their cruelty upon that child so that even now, free from the chains that had bound him, he still woke screaming when he dreamed of them?

Except they were not all faceless and nameless, Faelind realised, closing his bedroom door behind him and starting to pace restlessly up and down the length of the room. Oh, the guardsmen from the little towns and villages, the magistrates and merchants who had all blended into one, yes, they were lost to the past. But there was no mistaking the identity of one who ruled over a kingdom of men. And what? Faelind’s dark hair swished around his lower back as he turned on his heel and paced back the way he had come. What could he do about it? Write a strongly worded letter? Demand recompense? The very thought of it made him want to laugh bitterly. Besides, he reflected, baring his teeth in a protective snarl, nothing he could do would count for anything if Lutha dreaded that Malik Jasim would come after him.

Faelind stopped and pressed his hands to his face, breathing out slowly and deeply until his lungs and his anger were empty. Even then he kept his hands where they were, shoulders rising and falling slowly as his breath settled into a calmer pattern. He straightened and pushed his hands back over his hair, smoothing it down. When his hands came down to rest at his sides, he opened his eyes. A glimpse of them in the mirror on his wardrobe door showed him that they were hard and cold. Resuming his seat on the carved chest at the foot of his bed, Faelind calmly folded his hands in his lap and looked up into his wife’s loving eyes.

“Beloved,” he said quietly. “I am going to kill the Malik of Harad.” 

Midhaearien just smiled at him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Most ideas seem wisest when the moon is high, and when the sun rises, Faelind is forced to reconsider his midnight plans. He soon comes to realise, though, that he may have no choice if his son is to have any hope of surviving this new unwelcome visitor from the past.

Faelind slept not at all that night. Long after the oil in the lamps had burned out, he remained where he was, staring into the darkness while in his mind he laid his plans. He considered where Lutha would stay in his absence, the reasons he would give to be gone from home, the route that he would take, the stops that he would make along the way, the disguise that he would wear in the sweltering lands of Harad, and even the weapon that he would use to mete out justice. But when the sun rose, and Faelind rose with it to splash cold water on his face, his plans faded away to nothing. The cool light of day showed them for what they were: hollow.

He shook his head and scoffed at his own foolishness. Not since his youth had he been prone to flights of fancy, but it seemed that the night had brought it out of him. Really, he thought, as he prepared for the day ahead, what had he been thinking? That he could abandon his duties as Lutha’s father and an Elder of the Greenwood to chase after a spectre? _One might say,_ a voice suggested somewhere in his head, _that you would be fulfilling your duty to Luthavar by doing just that._ Faelind severely pushed the thought away.

“No,” he said quietly, meeting his wife’s eyes as she gazed out at him from her portrait. “My son needs me here. To leave him would be an act of selfishness. I would do away with this Malik of Harad to ease Luthavar’s fears, yes, but also to satisfy _my_ rage and _my_ desire for revenge.” Faelind looked down with a sigh and twisted the silver ring that was worn by all former and current Elders of Greenwood. “I am Elder of Law and Justice,” he added softly. “Not Elder of Law and Revenge. The very notion of it goes against all that I believe in. All that I am. To give in to that would be to betray myself.”

But the next night saw Lutha wake from the same dream. The next night, too. He didn’t wake on the fourth night. The only thing for Faelind to do on that night was stroke Lutha’s hair and speak in soothing tones until finally the elfling stopped tossing and turning to fall into a deeper sleep with his cheeks stained with tears. Nothing seemed to work. Faelind tried everything that he could think of, from sending Lutha to bed early after a soothing bath to wearing him out with a sparring session and making him stay up late. When that didn’t work, he gave him calming teas and sprinkled lavender oil on the pillows, and he let Lutha try sleeping in his bed and on the couch in the study. He even sent Lutha to stay a night with Thureneth, and then Feredir, wondering if a change of scenery might help. But nothing did. The night terrors were ruthless, breaking through every wall that Lutha tried so hard to keep around his mind. Even Nestorion was worried, for his skill at mind healing made little difference.

One morning, a full month after Faelind had first heard the tale of Malik Jasim, he sat at the breakfast table and regarded Lutha over the barely touched spread of toast, porridge, and fresh berries that sat between them. The way that the elfling methodically shredded a slice of toast with hands that trembled with exhaustion smote Faelind’s heart. Nor was he blind to the dark circles that sat under Lutha’s eyes, or those eyes themselves, usually so bright and merry but now dull and empty. He missed the morning chatter that Lutha usually pestered him with, and he would give anything for his son to sass him and offer a proud hair toss.

“Luthavar,” Faelind said quietly, breaking the silence. “I think that it may be wise for you to have some help in falling asleep – and staying asleep – tonight.”

“I’ve been drinking that valerian tea.” Lutha shot Faelind a sullen glance from under his lashes. “Even though it tastes like the forest floor.”

“Not the valerian,” Faelind replied, keeping his voice low and even. “It is having little effect. Perhaps the time has come for you to try the poppy tea.”

“No. Not that.”

The flat words, though not unexpected, made Faelind lean back with a sigh. “It is not a path that I am eager to go down either, my little boy. I promise you that. But I fear for you, Luthavar. This lack of sleep is making you ill. You shiver as if with a fever. Your hands tremble. No,” Faelind said sharply, as Lutha stubbornly hid his hands under the table. “You need not hide anything from me. I want you to sleep and recover your strength. The poppy tea will ensure that you sleep until morning without night terrors.”

“You can’t guarantee either of those things!” Lutha said irritably.

“I can guarantee that you will not wake until the dose wears off,” Faelind replied. “Both Nestorion and Elder Nestaeth tell me that those dosed with poppy have only ever reported dreamless sleep or pleasant dreams. I know that it is a drastic step. You know that I will not force it upon you. But there must come a time when your body and your mind are allowed a chance to regain their strength. Truly, I do not know how much more of this you can endure.”

“Sorry, but you’ll have to find some other elfling to sedate,” Lutha retorted.

Faelind said nothing more. He had to resist the urge to put his head in his hands and close his eyes in weary frustration. As was the way of his people at a certain age, he could easily manage a few nights at a time without sleep, but these nightly incidents were taking their toll on him as well. The irascibility wasn’t Lutha’s fault, he reminded himself. Anyone could snap if they felt just a little tired. Lutha was more than that. In body and soul, he was exhausted.

“Why do these dreams persist when others have not?” Faelind asked finally.

Glancing up from his shredded toast, Lutha looked suspiciously at his father from across the table. “I don’t understand what you’re asking me.”

A deep breath preceded another attempt. “You have had nightmares before of other people and other times but never as many as you are having now. Why do you think that you are dreaming so much of-”

“Don’t say his name!” Lutha shouted, and his usually clear voice was husky with fatigue. He glared, eyes narrowing. “Why am I dreaming so much of _him_? Why would you ask me that? You make it sound like I have a choice. I’m sorry, and it may come as a surprise to you, but I’m not exactly having a wonderful time of things. If I knew the answers to any of your questions, don’t you think I would be doing something to stop this from happening?”

“I simply wish to understand if there is something that I have missed, something that may hold the key to putting an end to this,” Faelind said quietly. He met Lutha’s eyes, and his son held his gaze for a long moment before getting up with an angry imprecation. Faelind let out a heavy sigh as the elfling stormed out of the kitchen. “Luthavar. Where are you going?”

“To find the magical solution that you seem to think exists!” Lutha snapped over his shoulder.

Faelind sighed again and shook his head. Following Lutha wouldn’t end well so he didn’t even try. The five years that had passed since he had formally adopted Lutha as his son had been some of the happiest of his life, though there had been challenges to overcome. He had known, going into it, that there would be challenges. He had been prepared to face them. Lutha had endured a lifetime of hurt. He had survived abuses that would have made others of their kind fade into death. Of _course_ it was never going to be easy. But they had got through every difficulty together, and this was just one more thing to overcome even though it was like nothing that Faelind had ever experienced before. He felt as out of his depth as ever before. Worse, he had no idea how to defeat this.

“Ada.”

The small voice breaking into his thoughts made Faelind lift his gaze and look towards the doorway. “Luthavar.”

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to be horrible,” Lutha whispered. “I…just…”

The shimmer of tears in the elfling’s grey eyes was visible even from across the room. Faelind rose wordlessly and crossed to the doorway, opening his arms and feeling his heart clench with relief and gladness as Lutha buried himself in his waiting embrace. “I know, my little boy,” he murmured. “I know.”

“I’m tired. I’m so tired,” Lutha sobbed, his face against Faelind’s chest. “And I’m scared. I don’t want to be scared. You said that I would never have to be scared again, but I _am_!”

It wasn’t an accusation, yet even so, Faelind knew that he had failed his son. He tightened his hold on Lutha as if that alone could keep the fear at bay. “I want to help you.”

“Perhaps you can’t.” The weary resignation in the voice muffled by his tunic stirred grief and anger in Faelind. “Perhaps you can’t. And that’s all right.”

Most children had the privilege of many years believing their parents to be infallible, trusting that they could fix all the world’s problems and defeat every monster. Was Lutha to know just five years of that and have it swept away from him? After everything else that he had gone through in his short life? “No,” Faelind said quietly, in answer to his own thoughts and to the defeated words spoken by his son. He drew back slightly and lifted Lutha’s chin so that their eyes met. “Tell me what you want, Luthavar.”

“I want everything to go back to how it was,” Lutha breathed. “I want to feel safe again.”

“Why do you not feel safe?”

“The…the dreams.”

“No,” Faelind repeated. “I know that you are tired. But think about it, Luthavar. Think about it carefully and then answer me. Why do you not feel safe?”

“Because…” Lutha hesitated, his gaze going distant as he forced himself to consider the question more deeply than he had before. “Because he…he’s the Malik of Harad.”

“What do you mean by that?” Faelind asked softly.

Lutha drifted past Faelind as if in a daze and wandered across the kitchen to the window. There he stopped and stared out into the pleasant spring morning. “The world has hundreds of merchants and guardsmen and innkeepers and nobility. It has so many of them that even if the ones who hurt me are still alive, I can tell myself that they are dead. How will I ever know any different? But there’s only one of him. I _know_ that he is alive. I _know_ that he still hurts other boy. And I _know_ that he still thinks of me and says my name.” That sent a shudder rippling through Lutha’s slender frame, but he gathered himself and forced more words out. “He still has a part of me. Perhaps that is it, then. Perhaps I must wait thirty years until he couldn’t possibly still live. Then I can sleep peacefully.”

“This is not your life,” Faelind said quietly. “It is but a chapter. No more.”

“An unending chapter,” Lutha replied with a bitter laugh.

Faelind slipped one arm around his son’s shoulders and drew him close against his side. “Do you trust me, Luthavar?”

“You know I trust you, Ada.”

“Then trust me when I tell you that this will come to an end,” Faelind said.

Lutha was silent for so long that Faelind thought he might not answer at all. Finally, the elfling looked up with a deep breath and nodded quietly. “I don’t know how it can be over soon. But I do trust you.”

“My good boy,” Faelind murmured. “Now, do you feel able to eat some more? You only had a little breakfast.”

“I can eat some berries,” Lutha conceded.

They returned to the table and Faelind picked up a slice of buttered toast from the platter in the middle of the table. It had cooled considerably, and he wasn’t at all hungry, but he wished to try and infuse the morning with some normality for his son’s sake. “You know that I must attend a meeting with the other Elders today,” he commented, discreetly watching and giving his silent approval as Lutha spooned some halved berries into a bowl. “Are you still intending to be with your friends?”

“Feredir and Nestorion gave them the day off so that we can do something together,” Lutha replied.

Faelind made a mental note to thank his youngest colleague and the healer. “What are you planning to do?”

“Well, Alphros wanted to go swimming but Galad was horrified and said absolutely not because I might fall asleep and drown,” Lutha detailed. “It’s nice of him to be concerned but I don’t think that would happen. Even if I fell asleep in the pool, I wouldn’t _stay_ asleep. Who sleeps through getting water in their nose?”

“I could not say,” Faelind murmured, though he tended to agree with Nestorion’s apprentice.

“Galad suggested this place on the outskirts of town where you can buy your own pottery and paint it,” Lutha added. “That sounds like it could be fun. I could meet you for lunch after.”

“Let us say dinner instead,” Faelind replied. “I am not certain when I shall be free of my duties today. Take the whole day with your friends, Luthavar.”

When breakfast was finished, father and son went their separate ways, Lutha to his bedroom to get ready and Faelind to his study to gather the papers that he needed to take with him for his meeting on the hill. As he slid them into a leather folder, his attention was caught by one of the bookcases. He went to it and drew out a book that his mother had given him long ago. It was full of pictures done by Thureneth herself, the places where she had travelled captured in her art. Faelind flipped through it until he found himself staring at a great sand desert under a blazing sun, where strange horse-like creatures with humps on their backs plodded along in a line. The next page showed a jungle so dense that Faelind could almost feel the humidity seeping through the book, and on the page after that were more strange animals; great cats with golden manes, spotted beasts as tall as a tree, and giant creatures with wrinkled grey skin and tusks that swept the ground.

_Harad._

Faelind had travelled often with his mother in his younger days. Not for love of adventure, but because Thureneth had been funny and warm and affectionate, and being with her had meant being away from his father’s cold severity. In truth, Thureneth had been more like an older sister to Faelind than a mother. Looking back, he was not certain that his younger and more rebellious self wouldn’t have benefited more from Thureneth making a greater effort to fulfil that maternal role. Still, Faelind harboured no resentment towards her. Thureneth had been young and far from her native home of Doriath, head over heels in love with a much older ellon who had ruled her with the same iron fist as he had ruled their son. She had done her best. And if she had made up for the lack of friends that her husband had enforced on her by trying to be Faelind’s friend instead of his mother…well, he had lived too long to still blame her for that.

So they had travelled, often just within Greenwood and the surrounding lands, but sometimes into Beleriand itself on long journeys that had blessedly kept them away from home for months and months at a time. Once, they had ventured into Doriath. Faelind’s mother had told him that they would make a game of it, that she would be a noble lady called Thureneth – for, in those days, she had gone by the name Aglarebel – and that he would be her little page. Only small at the time, Faelind had thought it was all great fun. Now he understood what Thureneth had never admitted to, that she had taken him to meet her family without wishing to confess to them her double life with a husband and a son of her own. He had vague memories of his time there and the people he had met: a haughty elleth with red curls who had looked at him with sharp green eyes similar to his own, a pair of indolent young lords who had not seemed especially pleased to see his mother, and an older and very handsome lord who had held Faelind’s hand and taken him to look at some injured birds that he was healing. Yes, they had travelled far, Faelind and his mother. But never to Harad.

Faelind slowly turned the page. He knew what was coming but the sight of the palace of white marble set amongst pleasing gardens and shimmering pools still made his blood run cold. _There. That is where it happened. The Grand Palace of the Malik. That is where Malik Jasim abused my son._ Faelind thought that the book might break in his hands, so hard did he hold it, but he couldn’t bring himself to release his grip. He bared his teeth in a father’s protective snarl and his hands trembled as they tightened and tightened around the book. Only when a knock came at the door did he lift his gaze and take a breath.

“Come.”

The door opened and Faelind put the book down. He hadn’t expected the visitor to be his son, for Lutha usually just walked straight into the study, but he was surprised when his eyes fell upon an equally familiar young elf. “Galadaelin,” he remarked, nodding to the healer’s apprentice even as he wondered how deeply his anger had run that he hadn’t heard Lutha’s friends arriving.

“Good morning, Elder Faelind,” Galad replied, his brown braids swinging as he bowed from the waist. “I have brought something from Master Nestorion.”

The something turned out to be a vial of liquid that had a scent both herbal and floral when Faelind sniffed lightly at it. “This is for Luthavar?”

Galad nodded. “Yes. Master Nestorion made it especially for him, sir. It contains valerian root, chamomile, passionflower, and a very small amount of poppy essence.”

“Not enough to induce sedation?” Faelind asked, weighing the vial in his hand.

“No, sir. It is Master Nestorion’s hope that these herbs, all very effective on their own, will work together to ensure peaceful sleep,” Galad said. “Lutha must take six drops a half hour before bed.”

For a moment, Faelind wondered if suddenly finding a solution would be enough to dissuade him from his course. He thought not. “Kindly pass my thanks to your master, Galadaelin,” he said aloud. “And my thanks to you, too. You are a good friend to my son.”

The words brought a smile to Galad’s face that was half puzzlement and half pleasure. “Of course.” Taking the words also as dismissal, he bowed again and turned to the door, but there he stopped with his hand resting lightly on the frame. “I am so worried about him.”

“Yes,” Faelind agreed quietly after a pause. He had become very comfortable in his role as Lutha’s father, but he was not entirely sure of himself with other children. Much like horses, they were all so different, and that could be confounding to an elf with little experience in that area. Faelind considered, and then he went to Galad and placed a hand on his shoulder. “We are all worried about Luthavar. I have faith that he will overcome this. You must too, elfling.”

Galad took a breath and straightened, gathering himself. “I will try.”

“Very good.” Faelind picked up his leather folder and guided Galad out of the study. He closed the door behind him and followed the sound of voices to the kitchen, where he found Lutha leaning against the counter nibbling a biscuit, and Alphros sitting at the table with his booted feet propped on it. A disapproving frown crossed Faelind’s face and he used the back of his hand to swipe Alphros’ feet off the table. “Do you behave so in your master’s home, elfling?”

“Master Feredir behaves so too,” Alphros replied readily.

Faelind rolled his eyes. “I am entirely unsurprised. Very well. I must leave but I trust that the three of you shall enjoy your day and behave. There is plenty in here for your lunch,” he said, taking a velvet pouch from his pocket and dropping it onto the table. It clinked with coins. “And there is a note of credit inside for your other activities.”

That pronouncement made Galad catch his breath and uncomfortably thank Faelind, while Alphros beamed and offered much more enthusiastic thanks. Faelind thought that he was probably already thinking of all the ways that he would spend the money that he had brought with him. “Thank you, Ada,” Lutha said, smiling.

“You are most welcome,” Faelind replied, and he returned the smile. “I will see you at The Great Oak at six o’clock this evening. Behave, elflings.”

That final reminder delivered, Faelind left the boys in the kitchen and went to collect his cloak. As he fastened the silver clasp at his throat, Lutha hastened down the hallway. “Surely you do not miss me already, my little boy,” Faelind gently teased him.

“I just wanted to tell you again that I’m sorry for being mean this morning,” Lutha said.

Faelind nodded patiently. “Yes. You have told me that you are sorry and I have forgiven you. There is no need for more.”

“All right. Sorry. Oh, I’m sorry,” Lutha said quickly, as he realised. His grey eyes widened. “Sorry! Well, I can’t stop now. Sorry.”

“Enough,” Faelind interjected. He turned Lutha and sent him off with a mild swat, though he couldn’t help smiling fondly. Shaking his head, he tucked his leather folder inside his dark grey and silver embroidered tunic, and he watched Lutha out of sight before striding through the front door. His horse had already been made ready by the ellon he employed to oversee the stables. The black stallion greeted him with an impatient whicker and a nudge to the chest. Faelind mounted up effortlessly, his dark cloak covering the horse’s glossy hindquarters, and turned Dúlinn’s head towards the hill of Amon Lanc. He had important business with his colleagues, but his mind was far away in a hot and dusty land to the south.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Faelind finds an outlet for his anger and begins assembling pieces of information to help him on his quest for justice.

_“Faelind!”_

The sound of his name being called burst into Faelind’s consciousness. He wheeled his horse around to see a chestnut mare prancing in the leaves as her rider reined her to a halt. “Good morning.” He stared at his mother, puzzled, for the look that she gave him in return was one of exasperation. “Will you explain why you are looking at me like that or must I ask you?” he said finally, when Thureneth drew her horse level with his.

“I hailed you six times and not once did you hear me,” Thureneth retorted. She was clad in an olive green gown split down the centre for riding, and polished burgundy boots brushed her knees over russet leggings of soft suede. Her auburn hair was bound in a thick braid down her back save for a few loose strands at her temples. As they rode on, she shook her head. “You kept Dúlinn at a steady canter as if I was quite invisible to you.”

“You were,” Faelind replied mildly. “I apologise. My thoughts were…elsewhere.”

Thureneth sighed as they resumed their journey towards the great hill of Amon Lanc. “With Lutha, I expect. How is he today?”

“Tired.” The word came out clipped. “Afraid.”

“And you?”

Faelind considered not answering. He didn’t see it as relevant to the conversation. But a sideways glance at Thureneth showed him the worry in her eyes and reminded him that, as his mother, her concern extended to him as well. “I suppose that I am much the same as Luthavar,” he admitted finally. “Tired. Afraid for him. And I cannot help but wonder if I am not enough for him right now.”

“What do you mean?” Thureneth demanded, immediately incensed. “You have become a wonderful father, Faelind. That boy couldn’t ask for better!”

Already regretting that he had opened his mouth, Faelind wearily lifted a hand to stop any further protests. “I meant that I have always been able to help him and make him feel safe. Now when he needs me more than ever before, I cannot do those things. Midhaearien would know what to do were she here.”

“You don’t know that,” Thureneth replied dismissively. “And if she was here, the two of you would have had other children and Lutha likely would have never come to you.”

That had occurred to Faelind before. He sighed and looked away, gazing at the path ahead. “What do you know of this Malik Jasim who haunts my son?”

“I have never met him, you understand,” Thureneth said, and Faelind was grateful that she didn’t comment on the change of subject. “You remember that we ceased our trade with Harad some three hundred years ago when the current ruling house – House Cobra – usurped House Eagle who had ruled peacefully and benevolently for nigh on a thousand years. House Cobra brought with them bloodshed and barbarism. Since they came to power, six men have ruled, and not one of them with principles that the Greenwood could ever align with. I had hope for Jasim but it was not to be.”

“Why did you think that he might be different?”

“He was little more than a boy when he inherited. I supposed that he might be young enough and his councillors wise enough that he might take another path, but the reports that I received of him as he grew to manhood greatly troubled me,” Thureneth said gravely. “He seemed to delight in cruelty, handing out death sentences as though they were sweets rather than saving them for the worst of crimes. Men, women, children; it mattered not. The treatment of slaves became harsher and more unforgiving than ever before. Once upon a time, the slaves of Harad were well treated by their royal masters. Now a slave may have their tongue ripped out for saying the wrong thing or an eye removed for looking uninvited upon their lord. The beasts of Harad suffer too. Great cats captured in the wild are starved to the point of madness only to be released into a pit where prisoners have no way of escape. The only way that I can see that land escaping such horrors is by another regime overthrow, but unless all the noble houses unite, none of them alone are strong enough to oppose House Cobra.”

Faelind had held his silence, keeping his eyes straight ahead as he tried and failed to imagine such a place. “House Cobra is strong in number, then?” he asked finally.

“You would think so. Malik Jasim has but one son and one daughter, an unusually small number of children for a Haradric ruler,” Thureneth remarked. “It speaks to his predilection for the male form but also to his arrogance; so strongly does he believe himself to be untouchable that he never bothered to get more than one heir. The Princess could never have inherited, of course. She was married off to the much older Emperor of Khand as soon as she was _old enough._ Thirteen was considered a good age to bind the two kingdoms together.”

The contemptuous inflection that Thureneth had given the words made it quite clear to Faelind what his mother thought of that. “And if Malik Jasim were to die…”

“His son inherits and the cycle continues,” Thureneth sighed. “Only with House Cobra destroyed is anything likely to change for the better.”

_Well, and what are you going to do now? You only signed up to assassinate_ one _ruler of men._ Somewhere in his mind, Faelind saw a flash of laughing blue eyes and a mischievous smile as his wife’s imagined words slipped into his thoughts. She made a good point.

“I think of the many joyous visits I spent at the Grand Palace when Harad was a kindlier place, and it grieves me to think of the ills done there to our little Lutha,” Thureneth said quietly.

That brought Faelind back to the present and he erased the sardonic half-smile that he had allowed himself. “Tell me of the Grand Palace.”

And so Thureneth did, speaking of the way that one could not walk barefoot in the gardens when Anor was high, for the heat of the sun beating down onto smooth stone paths was scalding to bare flesh. She compared the Grand Palace to their kingless palace atop Amon Lanc; the palace built by elven smiths and masons was a thing of elegance and great beauty, and at first glance the Grand Palace looked squat and square in comparison. But its allure lay in vaulted archways that gleamed with crushed precious stones, the intricate tiles that covered the floors and walls in a rainbow of colours, and the great golden dome that sat atop it like a crown.

In truth, Faelind didn’t care that peacocks roamed the grounds or that his mother could close her eyes and still smell the spices and jasmine that had lingered in the palace hallways when last she had been there. The food that graced the tables of Harad’s royalty was of no interest to him, nor was their music, or the steaming baths where barely clothed slaves scraped sweat from slick bodies with a touch that was almost sensual. Even so, listening to Thureneth revealed small pieces of information that Faelind stored away. The Malik of Harad kept his own rooms on the second floor of the Grand Palace with polished marble steps leading down to a walled garden where only he may walk. The rooms faced east, looking towards a far hilltop where one could see the sun rise behind a statue of the Haradrim’s god. Thureneth commented too on the palace guards, dark eyed men with curved scimitars whose elaborate dress made them appear part of the royal residence’s ornamentation rather than part of a true military force.

“It sounds a beautiful place,” Faelind acknowledged.

“It is. It was,” Thureneth amended bitterly. “I don’t think a place can still be beautiful when so much evil is done there.”

“Perhaps not in the same way.” A sideways glance showed Faelind that his mother was tightly clenching her jaw. “Shall we ride?”

When they reached the palace, the canter up the hill having refreshed them and eased their minds, it was to find that they were among the first of their number to arrive. Their only colleagues already present were Aermanis and Angoliel, who glanced up in greeting before bowing their heads back to the book that they had been poring over. Faelind took his usual seat just off to the centre of the great horseshoe shaped table and placed his leather folder in front of him.

The remaining members of the Circle of Elders filtered into the meeting chamber over the next half hour. Most were circumspect about not asking after Lutha, which Faelind was grateful for; such questions, however well meant, often became exhausting. The youngest two of the group seemed not to realise that and were unintentionally less considerate. Nithaniel kept trying to catch Faelind’s eye while Feredir came and stood next to him until Elder Rethedir arrived and shooed the young hunter away.

When the session was called to order, Faelind allowed his attention to drift depending on the matter at hand. He thought it not important to devote his mind to the matter of giant mudweed that had been springing up along the banks of the river that fed into the Great Falls and Caldron Pool. That required the combined skills and knowledge of Galawen, Lavaneth, and Feredir. Nor did Faelind engage in the discussion about storm damage to the fountain at the front of the palace, for that was led by the craftsmen Serellon, Turcared, and Thavron, but he did offer some advice when Serellon mentioned that individuals from a northern mining settlement had been accused of mistreating their horses. It was agreed that Lavaneth would travel north to visit the settlement and retrieve the horses if necessary, and upon her return she would report her findings to Faelind for him to consider if any judgement was merited or not. Serellon rather thought not, as the accusations had come from a rival settlement and were likely to be unfounded, but it was still something that needed to be looked into.

After that, it was Faelind’s turn to raise some issues. “The individuals responsible for the fire on the Racing Field have come forward,” he said briefly. “They had attended an evening gathering there and failed to properly douse the fire when they left. That, coupled with the unusually dry grass on the field this year…” Faelind waved a hand dismissively. “I have deemed their actions careless and reckless but not criminal. There is no compensation to pay; the shelter that burned was not privately owned. But they shall be responsible for rebuilding it.”

“Under my supervision, I suppose,” Thavron remarked.

“Or a craftsperson of your choosing unless you wish to let a trio of unskilled elflings go it alone,” Faelind replied.

Thavron sighed. “Fair enough.”

Faelind opened his leather folder and passed a piece of paper from within down the table to his younger colleague. “Their details are noted there. They, and their parents, know to expect you within the month. The only other matter that I must raise is that of the new inn on the outskirts of town.”

“They do good mead,” Feredir observed cheerfully.

“They do strong mead,” Serellon clarified with a snort. “That’s not the same as good.”

“Regardless, the inn is not permitted to remain open past ten o’clock at night due to its proximity to residential dwellings,” Faelind said. “Permission for the opening of the inn was _only_ granted on that condition, but the innkeeper has already been fined twice for breaking the terms of his licence. A third break will result in time in the cells and a fourth the revocation of the licence. He is being careful, but I am led to suspect that he is allowing patrons to remain inside after locking up. Dirnaith, I would appreciate a stronger patrol presence around the inn at the time of lock-up to ensure compliance.”

“You shall have it,” Dirnaith promised.

Faelind dipped his head in thanks and closed his folder, indicating that he had nothing else to say. To his right, Elder Rethedir glanced around the table before speaking in his rich voice. “I propose that we move on to the Lindon Matter.”

_The Lindon Matter._ Not a thing that they discussed often, only when it was relevant, but it was certainly likely to be the most important topic of the day. Faelind arrowed his attention to a fine point and focused as Rethedir gestured for Aermanis to speak. The High Priestess nodded to him, the silver charms in her midnight dark hair shimmering in the sunlight that streamed in through the glass ceiling. “There is not much to report, but what there is you will find pertinent. I have received word from one of my sisters in the City Temple. Tensions continue to rise between the Noldor and the Sindar of Lindon. Indeed, blood was spilled during a tavern brawl between Noldorin and Sindarin soldiers.”

“Soldiers fight all the time,” Dirnaith said with a laugh. “I can attest to that.”

“No doubt they do,” Aermanis agreed mildly. “But the slurs thrown between the two groups would suggest that this was more than a quickly forgotten quarrel between guardsman. _Sindar dog_ and _kinslayer’s son_ were the least offensive of the insults heard that night. All soldiers involved were sentenced to a whipping and a night in the cells for breaching the High King’s Peace and causing damage inside the inn. They were each ordered to contribute an equal amount towards the cost of repairs, but Lord Oropher, when he was summoned to Aran Gil-galad to answer for his people’s part in the incident, volunteered to bear the cost himself – for all the soldiers.”

“A valiant attempt to build bridges between the two peoples,” Rethedir said briefly. “I doubt it shall come to much.”

“Not with certain factions of the Noldor so intent on their hatred, no,” Aermanis replied.

“But what is the High King _doing_ about this?” The outburst had come from sweet-tempered Galawen. Born and raised in Doriath, she had survived both the fall of that kingdom and the Third Kinslaying at Sirion some years later. After the War of Wrath, she had fled east until she had reached Greenwood, for the forest had called to her in a way that the city of stone where the rest of her people had retreated to had not. Those who remained in Lindon to this day were her people too, and the indignation and affront that she felt on their behalf was plain in the flush that blossomed on her freckled cheeks.

“Not enough,” Thureneth said darkly.

“Aran Gil-galad has condemned any and all discrimination against the Sindar,” Rethedir interjected. “He is a just ruler. For his young age, he is a wise one. Yet he seems to believe that this will simply go away. That it is no more than petty squabbling that a telling off will resolve.”

Faelind had been listening in silence, but that prompted him to speak up. “Aran Gil-galad has condemned the discrimination, yes, but he has not written it into law. Without any formal laws prohibiting such behaviour it is difficult, indeed quite impossible, to police it. The soldiers were punished for breaching the peace and causing damage. Well and good, but if the racial prejudices that led to this incident are not addressed, then the root cause of the matter is simply being allowed to fester.”

“Like drawing poison from a wound without removing the arrowhead that caused it,” Nestaeth murmured.

“Just so. With the City Guard looking the other way, and the guilty Noldorin parties knowing that the Sindar are without legal protection, you can see how the situation has spiralled and will continue to do so,” Faelind replied. “Despite the High King’s best intentions, he cannot properly rule on this matter if he cannot see everything that is happening within his kingdom. And if no laws are being broken, because those laws don’t exist, he is never _going_ to see the whole picture.”

“Is it drawing near, then?” Feredir shifted slightly in his seat as all eyes turned to him. “Will they come here soon?”

“Lord Oropher and Lady Felith do not yet have a living child,” Nithaniel reminded him with a touch of sorrow in her voice.

“Remember the prophecy,” Aermanis cautioned the hunter. “It tells us that a golden child will bring them to the forest. We know that golden child is their son. It is true that we do not know _when_ the prophecy shall be fulfilled, but until a living son is born to them then Greenwood shall not have her king.”

“Do you ever wonder if the child in the prophecy should have been one of the four that they have already lost?” Feredir asked curiously.

Silence descended as every mind around the table considered that frightening possibility. Then Serellon folded his arms over his broad chest and said gruffly, “Wouldn’t be much of a prophecy then, would it.”

“I have wondered that,” Aermanis said gently, ignoring the stonemason. “But now is not the time to discuss such things, our young hunter.”

Talk turned to other matters, and when the council meeting came to an end the spring sun was riding high in the sky. Faelind noticed Thureneth arching an eyebrow at him in silent invitation to ride home with her, but he shook his head slightly and managed to summon a small smile for his mother. She nodded and returned the smile. As the Elders began to offer their farewells to one another and depart, Faelind glanced to the chair to his left as its occupant pushed it back.

“Dirnaith,” he said quietly. “Is the rest of your day spoken for?”

The warrior never cared for sitting still for long periods of time, and he rolled his shoulders in relief as he got to his feet. “Not at all. What would you have of me?”

“Your skills.”

Dirnaith’s green eyes flecked with blue lit up at that. “Ah! I should be glad to offer them.”

The two left the table and made for the doors together, and halfway there they exchanged a glance with one another as they both became aware of their youngest colleague hastily breaking off his conversation with Nithaniel and following after them. “I’d like to come with you,” Feredir said. He shrugged as the older ellyn just looked at him. “I don’t have my apprentice today. I shall be bored.”

“Come along, then,” Faelind conceded.

In the end it was four of them who collected their horses from the stables and rode down the hill of Amon Lanc, for Serellon decided to join them. Their talk remained light and pleasant, reined well away from matters of business and the troubles plaguing Faelind and Lutha. Faelind was grateful for that. Too often did his own mind go there, and the reprieve from such thoughts was most welcome.

So as to avoid taking up any more outside space than was necessary, Dirnaith’s house where he lived with his wife and the youngest of their four adult children was built over three floors rather than one or two as homes in Greenwood usually were. Surrounding the stone dwelling were grazing paddocks, a field for the racing and training of Dirnaith’s horses, and handsome red wood stables. Other outbuildings housed the warrior’s personal armoury and the inside training salle, and steam baths which were accessible from the outside archery course and sparring ground.

When the horses had been taken by two of the adjutants assigned to Dirnaith that year, he and Faelind warmed up with some rounds of archery. Feredir joined in while Serellon stood back and watched, and the young hunter outshot both older ellyn. Neither of them begrudged him that. They moved then to the sparring ground. Serellon leaned on the fence and Feredir sat atop it while Faelind and Dirnaith met in the middle with swords drawn. The sword that Faelind bore was not his own, but it was the one that he used whenever he matched Dirnaith, and it felt good in his hand.

They took their stances and began.

Faelind lost himself in the dance of swords. Shaking off his mantle of respected judge and stepping back into the long discarded shoes of a warrior was as effortless a thing as always. The blade was an extension of his arm, his feet moving independently of his mind as he whirled and parried and struck. He and Dirnaith were of a height, but each had qualities that lent them advantages over the other. Dirnaith was the broader of the two but Faelind the quicker. Faelind’s footwork was second to none but Dirnaith was a master at seeing three steps ahead. But neither of them were going to win. It was not a fight that either of them had to win or were even trying to win. It would last as long as it needed to until Faelind had released all his pent-up rage and frustration.

He poured everything into the fight. Every tear that he had wiped away, every nightmare, every flash of fear in Lutha’s eyes. Every horrific thing that had been forced upon his son that he could now picture with stunning and sickening clarity. It all went into the thrust of his sword. When Dirnaith got inside his guard and their swords locked, Faelind disengaged with such ferocity that the metal of the blades shrieked and sparked. And on it went, over and over, hair flying as the fighters ducked under each other’s weapons and rolled on the ground to avoid a hit only to flow to their feet and spin with as much lethal grace as any dancer.

When it came to a natural end, the sun had moved across the sky. Neither ellon was the victor but both were worn and satisfied. They clasped arms in the warrior way and Faelind quietly thanked his friend. Dirnaith just smiled and nodded in understanding before they sheathed their swords and went to join their colleagues. Feredir was wide-eyed and excited but Serellon just gave a half-nod of approval. Not much impressed him.

“So,” Dirnaith said, when they had caught their breath. “I take it that things are no different for you to have needed that.”

“Not so very different,” Faelind agreed.

“I had hoped for better news,” Feredir said, sounding grieved. “It isn’t fair that Lutha should have to endure this after everything.”

That made Faelind pause in smoothing his windswept hair. He had never thought of that before. _Not fair_ was a younger elf’s viewpoint. And yet… “You are right,” he agreed, conceding the point with a nod to his young colleague. “It is entirely unfair. There is little to be done that we have not already thought of or tried, but Nestorion has made a special mixture of herbs that we will try tonight.”

“Tinctures and potions and concoctions,” Serellon said under his breath with a snort.

“What would you suggest?” Dirnaith asked mildly.

“I would _start_ by hunting down the bastard who did this to our boy and separating him from his manhood,” Serellon retorted.

“Oof,” Feredir whispered, wincing.

_Our boy._ Faelind couldn’t help the faint smile that tugged at his lips. “I was under the impression that you thought Luthavar a pest.”

“I do and he is,” Serellon replied gruffly. “But he’s our pest.”

“He shall be pleased to hear that,” Faelind murmured.

Serellon folded his arms over his chest and stared off into the distance. Hatred shone forth from his clear blue eyes. “I don’t know how you do it, Faelind. How you stay so calm. How every day you fight the urge to make that monster pay and put an end to this once and for all.”

For a moment, Faelind gave serious thought to telling the other ellyn everything. Before him were three friends, three allies, who wanted his son to be safe and well as much as he did. “I do it because I must,” he said instead, the ambiguous words not a lie. He would never lie outright. But he couldn’t burden them with the truth, and not because he didn’t trust them but because he loved them. Dirnaith would try to talk him out of it and he had no wish to be at odds with the warrior. Serellon was hot-headed and rash; his quick temper was not what Faelind needed right then. And Feredir…Faelind respected him as a fellow Elder, but to his eyes the young hunter was little more than a boy. He would not and could not drag him into this.

“And you do it admirably,” Dirnaith was saying. “Nobody should live the life that Luthavar has, but he is lucky to have you, Faelind.”

Faelind summoned a smile for his friend but he was silently grateful when talk turned elsewhere. Before long he took his leave of the others and returned home. He had a light lunch of spring greens and crusty bread drizzled with flavoursome oil redolent with herbs, and then he sought his bed. That was not a thing that Faelind did often in the middle of the day, but he couldn’t remember the last time he had slept a whole night through. Though he hoped that Nestorion’s new concoction would allow Lutha a peaceful sleep free of dreams that night, he wanted to be awake and alert should his son need him again.

Faelind’s own sleep was dreamless, and when he woke later in the afternoon he rose to freshen up and change his clothing ahead of meeting Lutha. They often frequented The Mysterious Deer, which was not Faelind’s preferred choice of dinner venue as it was the sort of place that off-duty warriors gathered to drink and gamble, but he tolerated it because Lutha liked flirting with the innkeeper’s daughter. More recently they had been going to The Great Oak; the calm and peaceful atmosphere had been more to Lutha’s liking over the past month, the sweet scent of wood and gentle strum of harp strings preferable to the tang of spilt ale and the bawdy songs on offer at The Mysterious Deer.

No sooner had Faelind entered The Great Oak than the innkeeper hailed him from behind the bar. Supposing that the ellon had some complaint about the troublesome new inn on the outskirts of town, Faelind took a breath and gave him a polite nod. “Master Calethin,” he said. “I trust you are well.”

“Quite well, thank you, my lord,” Calethin replied, setting down a glass that he had been drying with a damp cloth. “Young Master Luthavar is awaiting you in your preferred booth.”

“Very good,” Faelind said. “And business is going well?”

“Oh…yes.” Calethin distractedly picked up the glass that he had already dried and started drying it again. When he realised what he was doing, he frowned at the glass before putting it back down and tucking the cloth into his belt. “Elder Faelind, I don’t like to tell tales but I wouldn’t be doing my duty as a responsible and reputable innkeeper if I didn’t.”

“And you are certainly that,” Faelind said pleasantly. “What is it, Master Calethin?”

Calethin sighed and glanced around before returning his nut brown gaze to Faelind. “I’m sorry to tell you that your son attempted to order mead when first he arrived here. Of course, I know that he is not yet of an age to safely or legally drink such a heady liquor. I offered him watered wine but he declined that. He then tried a second time to purchase mead from one of my staff when I was busy elsewhere. Thankfully, she had the presence of mind to refuse him.”

“I see.” Faelind kept his voice neutral. “I appreciate your forthrightness, Master Calethin. I shall address the matter with my son.”

“Of course, my lord,” Calethin replied. “May I have a glass of wine brought to you?”

“If you would be so kind,” Faelind said, and he nodded to the ellon before turning with a swish of his cloak.

The inn’s common room had tables of varying sizes, some small and tucked away in little alcoves for intimate dining, and others long benches for larger gatherings. In each corner of the room was a door leading into a private booth with a curved seat wrapped around a table. For no reason that he could say, Faelind had always liked the one at the top left. He paused for a moment to smooth away his irritation before opening the door and stepping in.

Lutha was gazing out of the window at a deer stepping carefully through the inn’s herb garden, but he glanced up as the door opened. “Oh. There you are.”

“Here I am.” Faelind leaned down and gave Lutha a paternal kiss of greeting. However annoyed he might be with the elfling’s behaviour, he wouldn’t deny Lutha his affection. “It is most unlike you to be early, my little boy.”

“I was just here,” Lutha said vaguely.

Faelind said nothing to that as he sat opposite his son. He noticed Lutha wrapping one hand around the glass that sat on the table in front of him. “How is the mead?”

Lutha snapped his head up and stared. “What?”

“How is the mead?” Faelind repeated calmly.

“The…it’s cordial!”

“Of course it is.”

“It is!”

“Of course it is,” Faelind said again. “Because Master Calethin and his staff rightly declined to serve you mead when you attempted, twice, to order it. They offered you watered wine instead, but you said no to that. You don’t like the taste. So, of course it is cordial. Raspberry, I suspect.”

“I…I didn’t…”

Faelind held up one hand. “Be very careful with your next words, little boy.”

“I…” Lutha stared at Faelind for nearly half a minute before leaning back and slanting his eyes away with a small pout. The words that followed came out sullenly as if he had been done a terrible wrong. “Master Calethin shouldn’t be telling tales on paying customers.”

Faelind decided against pointing out that he was the only paying customer at the table. “Master Calethin is a well respected innkeeper who operates his establishment within the laws of this land,” he said severely. “Those laws state that an individual who has attained their majority of fifty years may consume fruit cider or watered wine. They must reach their first _yen_ before they may legally drink headier liquors. You are seventy-three years old, Luthavar Faelindion.”

“You are,” Lutha said under his breath.

Five years was long enough for Faelind to have become well accustomed to ignoring such absurdities. “Well, regardless. You knew better.”

“I didn’t.”

“That is _not_ true,” Faelind said firmly.

“No, I knew the law,” Lutha clarified. “I just didn’t know that Master Calethin would take it so seriously.”

Faelind shook his head and had to marvel at his son’s daring. “And why did you think it appropriate to try and break that law? Tell me,” he added, when Lutha just glanced at him from under dark lashes. “I am fascinated to hear it.”

An oak tablet on the table bore the inn’s menu, and Lutha picked it up and held it in front of his face. “I think that I might have fish.”

“I think that unless you want me to march you straight home and put you to bed with a well paddled bottom, you will put that down and answer me,” Faelind said sharply.

That made Lutha lower the menu an inch and peer suspiciously over it. “Without dinner?”

Faelind sighed and reached across the table to take the oak tablet. “No. Luthavar, talk to me. Why did you do this?”

“Because…because if people drink enough then they sleep. I saw it all the time with the humans,” Lutha said defensively. “I just wanted to sleep. You know that I want to sleep and not have any dreams. You _know_ that.”

“I do know that,” Faelind agreed softly. “Galadaelin brought me a new blend of herbs that Nestorion has made for you. Did he not tell you?”

“Yes, he told me, and I’m grateful to Nestorion but I don’t see how it’s going to help when nothing else has!”

The despair in Lutha’s voice made Faelind’s heart hurt for him. “But what did you think would happen here? Imagine for a moment that you had got your hands on some mead and drunk enough of it to send you straight to sleep tonight. Did you think I would not notice that my underage son was intoxicated? That I would not smell it on you?”

“I don’t know,” Lutha said miserably. “It just seemed like an idea.”

“Not a very good one,” Faelind replied, not unkindly or without sympathy.

The elfling sniffed and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. “That’s why I only said that it seemed like an idea. Are you mad with me?”

“I am not pleased,” Faelind said quietly. “But I understand.”

“Are you going to smack me?”

The door of the booth opening gave Faelind some time to think about his answer to that question. He politely greeted the elleth who stepped in with a glass of wine for him, and as she took their order he considered what he would say to Lutha when they had their privacy again. He felt that he ought to let the matter go with a warning. It didn’t seem entirely fair to punish Lutha when his flouting of the rules had come from a far deeper place than mere insolence or wilfulness. There was, Faelind supposed, the fact that Lutha had _known_ that he was trying to break a law, and his subsequent attitude and attempts to lie had not been particularly impressive. There was a lot to be said for keeping life as normal as possible during what was an already testing time. On balance, Faelind wasn’t sure what message he would be sending if he failed to handle things now in the same way he would at any other time.

When the elleth had left with their order and closed the door behind her, Faelind met Lutha’s eyes across the table. “When we get home, I would like you to take the sleeping draught that Nestorion sent. I know that you do not have much faith in it but please try it. You may be surprised. After that, when you are ready for bed, you are going to have a bedtime spanking. Do you understand?”

Lutha’s sigh was assent enough. “What do I have to do to not be spanked?”

“You might try not being naughty,” Faelind suggested neutrally. “I have heard that often works reasonably well.”

“But you said that you understand,” Lutha protested.

“And so I do,” Faelind promised. “But your trauma is not an excuse, Luthavar.”

The elfling wrinkled his nose in confusion. “How can it not be?”

Faelind rested his chin in one hand and regarded his son thoughtfully for a long moment. “Consider a son beaten by his father. He grows up and has a family of his own. He beats his children as he himself was beaten. Is it right of him to do that?”

“Well, no, of course not,” Lutha said immediately.

“Even though his father did it to him first?”

Lutha shook his head. “He still shouldn’t do it.”

“No. Trauma, in his case the beatings by his father, are the reason why he inflicts such treatment upon his own children,” Faelind continued. “But a reason is not the same as an excuse. So it is here. Your nightmares, your tiredness, everything that you have been enduring, are the _reasons_ why you behaved so this evening. Those things _explain_ your behaviour. They allow me to understand your behaviour. But they do not excuse it or make it acceptable. Do you understand that?”

“Yes,” Lutha said slowly. “That makes sense.”

“Good. Then unless you wish to say anything more, we will not discuss it further until we go home.” Faelind nodded in response to Lutha shaking his head, and then he relaxed slightly and smiled. Lutha may be in disgrace, but Faelind had no intention of withholding affection or interest in his son. “Now, why don’t you tell me all about your day?”

And so Lutha did, brightening as he launched into a blow-by-blow account of his day from when he had left home with his friends. They had spent the morning wandering around the market, he said, and each had made purchases; Alphros had spent his coins on sweets, while Galad had bought a book and Lutha had chosen a selection of tiny beads for his hair. After meeting Galad’s older brother Noendir for lunch, the trio of friends had made their way to a pottery workshop on the outskirts of town where Lutha had chosen to paint a clay cat inspired by Fanuilos complete with blue eyes, a pink nose, and white fur. Her lack of other colourings had meant that Lutha had finished while his friends were still only halfway through their own more detailed creations, so he had selected a mouse and painted it with Elder Serellon in mind. Lutha laughed as he told Faelind about the mouse’s yellow fur to match Serellon’s blond hair and its blue eyes which were just like the stonemason’s.

“We have to go back tomorrow to collect the pieces when they have dried,” Lutha added. “I’m going to give the mouse to Serellon as a present.”

Faelind had to ask. “Why?” He was not certain that Serellon would entirely approve.

“Funny,” Lutha replied mischievously.

It occurred to Faelind as they ate dinner and again on the way home that although Lutha hadn’t forgotten that he was in trouble and would be going to bed with a warmed bottom, it didn’t intrude on their time together. Lutha was as talkative and at ease as ever. Only when they reached home did he let out a quiet sigh of resignation, his shoulders slumping. Faelind would take that. He could recall being a young elf in disgrace, rigid with fear and sick with anticipation at the thought of facing his father. That Lutha felt safe enough to still enjoy being in his company, despite what was to come, brought joy to Faelind’s heart.

Lutha accepted six drops of Nestorion’s sleeping draught with a doubtful look for the vial followed by a screwing up of his face to announce his displeasure with the taste. He went upstairs to get ready for bed, and when Faelind followed him up fifteen minutes later it was to find the elfling sitting cross-legged on the bed, clad in a cream nightshirt and dove grey leggings, teeth freshly brushed and hair tied out of his face. “Are you ready?” Faelind asked softly.

“I guess so,” Lutha said with a sigh.

Faelind just nodded. He certainly didn’t except his son to be enthusiastic about what was to come. He sat on the edge of the bed, and Lutha uncurled his legs and shifted closer until he was close enough to place himself across Faelind’s lap. “I do not think that we need discuss this any further,” Faelind said, lifting Lutha’s shirt out of the way and lowering his leggings to just above his knees. “You understand why we are here?”

Lutha murmured a _m-hmm_ sort of response. Supposing it was fair enough that conversation was the last thing on Lutha’s mind, Faelind began the spanking with half-strength smacks meant to warm the elfling’s bare bottom and prepare him for sterner discipline to come. Not that Faelind intended to be severe, because of course there were extenuating circumstances, but he did want Lutha to take heed of this lesson and remember it well should he be inclined to such behaviour in the future. After all, there was still a long way to go before he reached his first _yen._

Faelind had decided against using anywhere near his full strength for this lesson, but after five minutes of those warming half-strength smacks he started to put more force behind them so that when they landed unerringly they were firmer and more solid. Lutha had more or less been quiet, but he reacted accordingly to the harder smacks, letting out a self-pitying sort of whimper as he tearfully tucked his head into his arms. Saying nothing, Faelind tightened his hold around Lutha’s slender waist and drew him closer in wordless reassurance without compromising on the discipline that his son had earned.

When Lutha’s bottom was a uniform shade of dark rose, though not quite red, Faelind stopped. He lightly ran his hand over Lutha’s hair, smoothing it down, and noticed the elfling shakily letting go of the bedcovers. “No more now, my little boy,” Faelind murmured.

“I’m sorry I had a bad idea,” Lutha whispered around sobs and gasps of breath.

“You may have as many bad ideas as you like. They only become a problem when you act on them.” Faelind wondered if that made him a hypocrite, but he pushed that aside as a moral dilemma for another time and focused instead on righting Lutha’s nightclothes and helping him to his feet. He stood then as well, and wrapped his tearful and soundly spanked son in his arms. “I love you very much, Luthavar. Nothing will ever change that. You know that, don’t you.”

“Yes, Ada,” Lutha said, his voice muffled as he nodded against Faelind’s chest. “I love you too. Even if you smack me.”

Faelind chuckled softly and drew back, using the edge of his sleeve to gently wipe tears from Lutha’s cheeks. “Time for bed now, my little boy.”

“Will you stay with me?” Lutha asked, hissing through his teeth as he got into bed and settled carefully on his side. “Just in case Nestorion’s sleeping draught doesn’t work?”

“Of course I will,” Faelind promised. He moved the chair from Lutha’s writing desk to beside the bed and seated himself there. “Though,” he added, as he leaned forward to tuck the elfling in more securely, “I hope that this one works where the others have not.”

“Me too,” Lutha breathed, and fear of what may come to haunt him that night flickered in his eyes.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The time draws near for Faelind to set out on his quest. Before he does, help comes from an unexpected place.

The sleeping draught worked.

Lutha called it a fluke after the first night. He called it a fluke the second night, too. On the third night he looked seriously at the small vial and said, “I might have been wrong about you.” On the fourth night, he was as eager to go to bed as Faelind had ever seen him. By the end of that first week, he was already worrying about running out of the draught. So effective was the clever blend of herbs that Lutha slept peacefully, his mind free of torment and pain, so much so that Faelind reconsidered his intentions to journey south. But while in some ways the draught was the magical cure that they had been seeking, in other ways it was not. Still did Lutha turn his head this way and that when he was in town, as if searching for the monster from his suppressed nightmares. And still, in the middle of a pleasant dinner, his eyes would go distant and hold in their depths a flicker of fear. The nights may have been saved but the days were a new torture. And so, Faelind made his plans in secret.

Maps and archived reports written in Thureneth’s hand from her journeys into Harad told Faelind of the best roads to take and the places where a traveller may stop to rest, and the towns and villages that were best avoided and the ones that could offer a comfortable inn and stores for replenishing supplies. Haradric was one of the languages that Thureneth had insisted Faelind learn as a young elf, much to his father’s disdain, and he had done well at it. Over time, his skills had become rusty, and so he practiced and polished them, studying hard into the early hours of the night when Lutha was fast asleep. He was relieved to find that the language came back easily.

Among his friends and colleagues, Faelind began planting the seeds of his imminent departure. He didn’t tell anyone where he was going, or why, for that would require outright lying and that he would not do. But no Elder was required to divulge all the details of either their private or professional business. They were their own elves, the most skilled and adept in their professions, and while they did often speak to one another of what they were doing, they certainly were under no obligation to do so unless there was an overlap of expertise that demanded their colleagues be involved. It was enough for Faelind to say that he had business elsewhere and that he would be gone for a while to attend to a complex and historical case. Nobody tried to poke more details out of him, though Thureneth looked curious and Feredir said, “ooh, that sounds fun.” Faelind did not rise to the bait.

The greatest concern in all the planning and groundwork was Lutha and how he would take the news of his father’s upcoming absence. It wasn’t so much the fact that Faelind would be leaving, for he had gone away to judge on one case or another several times since adopting Lutha. The shortest of those trips had been three days and the longest had been three weeks. This would be more, and that was a worry.

“Next week I must go away for a time.” Faelind had decided that he needed to break the news sooner rather than later, and to wait any longer would do more harm than good. He and Lutha had finished a pleasant dinner at home and were just starting on a dessert of peaches in honey. Studying his son from across the table, Faelind added, “I have business elsewhere and I will be gone for longer than usual.”

“Oh. Can I come?”

“I am afraid not,” Faelind replied.

“I came with you when you went to judge that elleth who punched an ellon in the face after his dogs ate her chickens, and the village magistrate couldn’t preside because the elleth on trial was his wife,” Lutha pointed out. “Why could I go with you then but not now?”

“Because this is quite different,” Faelind said.

“Oh,” Lutha said again. “Is it worse?”

Faelind just nodded briefly. “It is.”

“A lot worse?”

“Yes, Luthavar.”

“How much worse?”

“Enough that you are not to come with me,” Faelind said firmly. “I will not hear another word about it, little boy.”

Lutha stabbed one of his peaches with his fork and moved it around in the honey as he considered his father’s words. Finally, he shrugged his slim shoulders. “Fair enough. How long is longer than usual?”

“A month, I would think,” Faelind replied. “I will do my best to return as swiftly as possible.”

“I’ll miss you,” Lutha said abruptly. “But I know that you have to go away sometimes and I like that your work helps people and makes some of the wrong things better.”

“Thank you.” Relief that he wasn’t going to have to do battle with either Lutha or his own conscience rushed over Faelind, and he gave his son a fond smile. “I will miss you too, Luthavar, but I am certain that you will have plenty to keep yourself occupied while I am gone. Your grandmother will come and stay with you, but of course you may spend a night or two at Nestorion’s house or Feredir’s or with any of the other Elders. You know their doors are always open to you. I promise that nothing will be any different in my absence.”

Lutha laughed then, his grey eyes twinkling. “Ada! You sound like we’re five years in the past and I need to be reassured that I’m not going to be abandoned. Everything will be fine, I know. Oh, can I have a big party while you’re gone?”

The first comment had made Faelind smile ruefully, but the latter one made him reply in mock severity, “And you sound as though we have suddenly found ourselves in an alternate world. You may have Alphros and Galadaelin to stay, but there will be absolutely no parties, big or otherwise. Am I making myself clear, little boy?”

“No parties,” Lutha agreed dutifully.

The next few days were given over to the tedious but necessary tasks that precipitated a long trip. Faelind finished up some work and presided over one final case before meeting with his two assistants who worked in his office in the palace on the hill. Getting around them was somewhat trickier than getting around his colleagues; unlike the Elders, Dinendir and Laeglir needed to be given a little more detail. Faelind simply told them that he would be on personal business and that any matters that could neither wait until his return nor be dealt with by them could be sent to Judge Baleth, one of his former students, now a magistrate in a settlement two days to the north. Neither assistant had batted an eyelid at that. Faelind had long ago earned a reputation for being a private sort of elf.

After that there was packing to do, an event that Faelind found equally boring and frustrating. He tried to do it when Lutha was either in bed or out of the house, because the elfling was prone to perch on the edge of his bed and poke at the things that he was taking and make comments like, “But why aren’t you packing your green tunic with the grey embroidery? It really sets off your eyes,” or, “That shirt goes with absolutely none of the leggings you’ve packed so far. You are taking the charcoal grey leggings, yes? Because if you’re not then I really don’t see why you would even take that shirt out of the wardrobe, Ada.” Privately, Faelind wasn’t certain that a shirt that went well with charcoal grey leggings wouldn’t look equally fine with slate grey or black, but such things seemed to be greatly important to Lutha.

The day before Faelind was due to leave, he found himself standing in the most unexpected of places. A bird was singing somewhere in the trees, and every light breeze made the wildflowers sway. Faelind closed his eyes and breathed in their sweet, fresh, earthy scent, finding peace and comfort in it. He hadn’t intended to come here. He hadn’t even known that this was where his heart was leading him until his mind had recognised the path that his feet were on. Opening his eyes again, and gazing into the centuries-old face carven of white marble in smooth lines of love and kindness, Faelind knew why he was there.

“Where were you, Eru?” he quietly dared to ask. “Where were you when my son needed you? Where were the Kings and Queens of the Belain who we are led to believe love us so well? We are taught to love you and them, to believe in your benevolence and goodness, to give praise to you all. Yet when we need you most, you forsake us. Are you a cruel god, Eru? Do you know that I am here? Do you hear me?”

The statue gazed over Faelind’s head into the far distance. He waited expectantly for something, anything, a bolt of lightning to strike him down as punishment, or one of those stray breezes whispering through the wildflowers to bring him omnipotent words of comfort. He waited and waited, his fists clenched at his side, but there was nothing. Finally he shook his head and looked away, the breath of his bitter laughter carrying with it his anger and sorrow. “Perhaps you don’t even care,” he softly told the statue.

“Faelind.”

He stiffened and then turned, smoothing his expression to impassivity. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised that Aermanis had managed to approach undetected. “Have you come to talk to me about the powers-that-be intervening in free will?” he asked, looking at his friend’s face and wondering how long she had been standing there with her hands folded serenely in the wide sleeves of her white gown.

The High Priestess smiled and shook her head, dark hair rippling and opals woven through it glittering. “I like to think that my ability to read the room transcends that.”

“So it does,” Faelind conceded.

“Walk with me,” Aermanis invited him.

They walked away from the statue in its courtyard of wildflowers and out into the grounds that surrounded the Temple of Greenwood, following a smooth path past rocky water features and gardens both soothing and comforting. An arched bridge over an ornamental pond where golden fish darted back and forth beneath the lily pads was where they stopped, Faelind standing with his hands clasped behind him and Aermanis resting her hands on the wooden guard rail as she gazed down at their reflections in the water. “You seem lighter of spirit today. Despite the answers you sought from Eru.”

“Luthavar is sleeping much better and he has not been plagued by nightmares in over two weeks,” Faelind replied. “It is a great relief.”

“And are you ready for your trip?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” Aermanis looked up from her study of the water and smiled at him. “You will want to take a light scarf with you. I hear that the sandstorms on the Haradric desert can be unpleasant.”

“What did you say?” Faelind asked quietly.

“The scarf will protect your eyes and your face,” Aermanis added.

Faelind turned sharply to face his friend and she turned gently to meet him. He could almost feel the sparks flying from his eyes as he met her infuriatingly calm gaze. “What are you talking about?” he hissed.

“Then I am wrong and you are _not_ intending to travel to the far south and mete out justice to the one who harmed your son?” Aermanis looked steadily at Faelind, accepting the glare that he kept levelled on her, and then she let out a soft laugh. “Faelind. You and I were born on the very same day. Your mother nursed me and mine nursed you. We ran together as children. You sneaked into my room when I was a novice here at the Temple and we ate sweets together by starlight. I presided over your marriage. Does anyone in the world know you better?”

“And what are you going to do with your knowledge of me and my intentions?” Faelind asked stiffly. “Will you try to talk me out of it?”

“I suppose that depends entirely on you. Do you want to be talked out of it?” Aermanis inclined her head as Faelind silently shook his head. “Well, then I shall not try.”

“Why even bring this up at all?” Faelind demanded.

For a moment Aermanis just considered him with her deep blue gaze. The fabric of her diaphanous sleeves slit at the elbow to leave her arms bare caught and fluttered on the breeze. Finally, she put a hand on his arm and guided him off the bridge to a carved bench that looked out over the pond. “I wish you to know that you are not alone,” Aermanis said. “You bear a heavy burden, my friend. I wish also to offer you reassurance and comfort should you need it.”

“Why should I need it?” Even as Faelind asked the question, he knew. He knew also that Aermanis _knew that he knew_ , and that she would stay silent until he got there on his own. Shaking his head, he looked away from her with a haunted sigh. “They called me _murderer_ when my wife died. They were wrong. I was innocent and I had to fight with everything I had just to clear my name. Now I go to become the very thing that I was once accused of being. Yes, I have turned that over in my mind many times.”

“This is not an impulsive act,” Aermanis said carefully. “You have thought long and hard about it. No doubt you have considered it from every angle and debated it not as Faelind the father but as Faelind the Elder of Law and Justice in Greenwood. Yet the laws of Greenwood cannot prevail here. For this to be justice instead of revenge, you would have to be acting within the laws of Harad.”

“The laws of Harad.” Faelind breathed out a low and bitter laugh. “I understand different lands, different cultures. I understand that humans are not us. But it makes a mockery of justice that there can be a law allowing a child of thirteen mortal years to be bedded by a grown man. And if that child is a girl? Well, then she may be married off even younger than that providing she has had her first blood!”

“It is not a thing that we can understand,” Aermanis agreed quietly. She folded her hands in the white lap of her gown and watched a dragonfly dart towards the pond. It settled on a lily pad, its clear wings slowly lifting up and down on either side of its iridescent body. “How old was Luthavar?”

Faelind took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Malik Jasim contracted him five times over the course of thirty years. The last three times, Jasim would have seen him as a youth anywhere between fourteen and sixteen. Not so very different to how he appears today. Luthavar was unwilling, but by their law he was regarded as the property of the Clan – a slave, in other words, and so he had no right to consent and no legal protection. As abhorrent as we might find that, no Haradric laws were broken.”

“And the first two times?” Aermanis asked softly. “How old would he have appeared to mortal eyes?”

Now Faelind was quiet for much longer. Anger and grief and disbelief that such cruelty could exist in the world fought each other for dominance until he closed his eyes and quieted them. “Twelve the second time. Nine the first time.”

“Then Malik Jasim broke his own law twice and in the worst of ways,” Aermanis said gravely. “No man is above the law, Faelind. Not even a king. This is not murder. It is justice.”

Not until he heard those words spoken aloud did Faelind realise how much he had needed them from someone else. He had done his best to assure himself of it many times over, but hearing it spoken from another person brought him peace. He quietly thanked Aermanis, and she smiled at him in return. For a time they just sat there, looking out over the pond as they lost themselves in their thoughts. The dragonfly buzzed from one lily pad to the other, and gentle spring sunlight streamed through the trees around them. Faelind would miss his peaceful forest.

After a time, Aermanis reached into a pocket of her gown and withdrew something small and round. A dull bronze, it shone more brightly as the sunlight hit it. “Take this with you, Faelind. Keep it safe.”

Faelind took the little bronze circle into his hand and saw immediately that it was a coin. Stamped on the face of the coin was a woman with the lower half of her face veiled, her eyes closed and her head bowed. The edge of the coin was smooth save for a couple of small symmetrical notches that didn’t look as though they were entirely accidental. “How far will this get me in Harad?” Faelind asked.

“Not far at all if you do not know the right people,” Aermanis replied. “But quite far if you do.”

“Aermaneth,” Faelind chided her, and the use of the name that she had gone by in childhood made her eyes sparkle with mirth. “You might be less vague with your oldest friend.”

Laughing softly, Aermanis withdrew a small scroll tied with a silver ribbon. “Follow these directions when you reach the City of Harad. It will not do for you to be without allies.”

“You have never travelled to Harad to have allies there,” Faelind began, but then he stopped. Was he himself not travelling to a foreign land with all but one of those close to him completely in the dark? That thought made him stop and look carefully at Aermanis. She did travel, throughout the forest and to some of the outlying towns and villages, often to preside over ceremonies or to offer comfort and spiritual advice to those who might need it. Faelind realised that he had taken it for granted that that was _all_ she did.

“No,” Aermanis said then, taking pity on him with a low chuckle. “I have never travelled to Harad. But just as I have connections in the Temple of Lindon, so do I have connections elsewhere.”

“Then these will lead me to a place of worship,” Faelind concluded, glancing down at the scroll and the coin.

“Something like that.” Aermanis stood, and as Faelind rose too she clasped her hands around his and pressed a kiss of benediction to his brow. She followed it with a kiss of friendship to his cheek. “Be well, Faelind.”

“And you,” he replied quietly.

There was little else for Faelind to do that day save make the most of the time that he had left with his son. He and Lutha had lunch together at The Great Oak, and Thureneth joined them at home that evening; she brought with her a travelling pack containing all that she would need for her stay there along with a trunk in which a selection of gowns were carefully stored. Faelind half wondered if Thureneth suspected that he was intending more than he had let on, for if anyone knew him better than Aermanis then surely it was his own mother. But Thureneth left the matter well alone and asked no questions.

On the nights that Faelind sought his bed it was never early, but as he intended to travel for a few days at a time before stopping to rest, he exercised enough self-discipline to retire shortly after Lutha’s bedtime. He slept, but it was a restless night. He woke often to consider if there was something that he had forgotten or even to second-guess the entire expedition. On the second to last time that Faelind woke, it was because the sound of his bedroom door opening had intruded on his sleep. He sat up, green eyes piercing the dimness of the room as feet padded gently towards his bed. He judged that it was an hour before dawn.

“Luthavar,” he said softly. “Did you have a nightmare?”

“No,” the elfling whispered. “I’m sorry for waking you.”

Faelind shook his head slightly and gestured for his son to come closer. “Is something wrong?”

“No. I don’t think so. Or…maybe.” Biting his lower lip, Lutha sat cross-legged atop the bedcovers and wrapped his arms around himself. “I’m worried.”

“Worried?”

“What if the nightmares come back when you’re gone?” Lutha asked anxiously.

“You have enough of the sleeping draught to last you at least two weeks,” Faelind gently pointed out. “Nestorion will give you more before you run out. No need to worry about that, my little boy.”

“I know. I’m not worried about that. The sleeping draught works and I know it does, but…but what if it only works so well because I know that you’re here?” Lutha asked. “What if it doesn’t work when you’re gone, and I need you and you’re not here?”

That stunned Faelind into silence. For a moment he looked at his son through the shadows, unsure how to respond and struggling to sort through his rushing thoughts over the hammering of his heart. “Luthavar,” he said finally. “Do you need me to stay? To forego the trip?”

“Could you do that?” Lutha asked uncertainly. “It wouldn’t ruin anything or make things difficult?”

“I do not _have_ to go,” Faelind replied.

“But aren’t people relying on you?”

“You are relying on me,” Faelind said. “You are my priority. Always.”

It had been a perfect spring night, the pleasant kind where it was warm enough to have the window open to the smells and sounds of the forest, but cool enough to burrow deep beneath the blankets. Lutha shivered a little and shifted under the bedcovers, wrapping his arms around his knees. “I’m being stupid. It’s just…you make me feel safe, Ada. I’ll miss that. I’ll miss you.”

“Tell me not to go, and I will stay,” Faelind said quietly. “You can. Nobody will be upset if you do.”

Lutha looked up and met Faelind’s eyes through the pre-dawn light. “I think you need to go,” he said eventually. “I don’t know what you’re going to be doing but it must be important. Just come back quickly and bring me a present.”

“I can do that,” Faelind conceded with a faint smile. He leaned back against the headboard and put his arm out in wordless invitation. As Lutha came willingly to curl against his side, dark and tousled head pillowed on his chest, he wrapped his arm securely around his son. “Try to sleep some more, my little boy,” Faelind said, bowing his head to soothingly murmur the words against Lutha’s ear. “Sunrise is yet a few hours away.”

“And then you’ll be leaving,” Lutha replied sleepily.

Faelind closed his eyes and let out a deep, silent breath. “Yes. Then I will be leaving.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Faelind leaves Greenwood and begins his journey to the south. Along the way he gains an unexpected travelling companion and makes a friend.

Faelind left home an hour after sunrise. He could still feel Lutha’s arms around his neck and Thureneth’s lips lightly brushing his cheek as she murmured a mother’s plea for him to be careful. Any doubts about whether or not she knew what Faelind was going to do had all vanished when he had drawn back to meet her eyes and the two of them had exchanged a silent glance of understanding. Well, so she knew. It changed nothing.

The path that Faelind had chosen was a straight one from the town of Amon Lanc that would see him to the southern eaves of the forest by sundown. He knew that his black stallion’s fleet hooves could have made that part of the journey in less time, but Faelind had no intentions of drawing unwanted attention. So, horse and rider travelled at a leisurely pace, cantering when the path was clear but just as often falling back into an easy lope or a sedate trot. Dúlinn’s frequent snorts and head tosses made it quite clear that he was eager to show off, but Faelind just reined him in and murmured, “Soon.”

A handful of miles back from the border of the forest was a respectable inn where Faelind had considered spending the night, but he had decided against it. The horses of his people were bred for endurance in a way that even the greatest horses bred by the race of Man could not hope to match, and nor did Faelind need to rest after a day of travel. Besides, this part of the journey was easy. He was prepared for hardships to come later. When they did, he would seek rest and replenishment when he could, but for now he would take advantage of the start that he had gained. The scent of that night’s roasting meat drifted pleasantly on the wind but Faelind and Dúlinn pressed on past the inn.

When the road began to narrow on the final approach to the southern border, the branches of the trees that stood like sentinels to either side of the path reached across to one another as if holding hands. Almost they formed a tunnel, and at the end of it was a rolling green plain as far as the eye could see, its grass burnished gold by the early evening sun. Dúlinn pranced restlessly with his tail lifted high and his ears pricked. Faelind could feel the horse quivering with excitement. He leaned down and whispered one word: _“Go.”_ Dúlinn went triumphantly onto his hind hooves and then he flew.

Their second day saw them set a slower pace as they passed through the Gardens of the Entwives. Faelind had been there before, but so lovely were those lands that it would have felt blasphemous not to drink everything in. Always he had believed that there was no place more beautiful or restful than Greenwood, but the Gardens of the Entwives were something to marvel at indeed. The bees buzzed more loudly here, their bumbling bodies as big as goose eggs, and the wildflowers seemed brighter and the grass more lush. Far in the distance were the Entwives themselves. They paused in their gentle tending of the earth to raise their boughs in greeting, flower-braided green hair twice as long as Faelind was tall lifting in the breeze. When all of this was over, Faelind thought, he would bring Luthavar here to show him this pleasant part of the world.

In the middle of the third afternoon they reached a walled settlement in the shadows of the Emyn Muil. The people there were polite and friendly, if a little reserved, and Faelind bought a clean and comfortable room in the town’s one tavern for himself and a warm stable for Dúlinn. He suspected that his hosts were unused to visitors and he was even more certain that they had not met one of his kind for a long time – if at all. Secretly, their stares unnerved him. After eating an adequately cooked fish supper and listening to a few minstrel’s songs out of courtesy, Faelind politely declined the invitation to spend the rest of the evening in the common room. Though a private elf, he would not necessarily say that he was an unsociable one. Even so, if he had to choose between his own company or that of strangers…well, he trusted himself more than he did the strangers.

More traffic appeared on the road as the fourth day took Faelind through villages and small towns between the marshy fens of the Nindalf and the foothills of the Ephel Dúath. Some of them looked to have been thrown up in a hurry, populated by little more than mud huts topped with thatch, but others were established settlements that appeared to do lively trade with one another. It was in one of these towns that Faelind stopped for the night. Riding under starlight and moonlight was pleasant, and he and Dúlinn had done just that earlier in the journey to eat up the miles. But that had been in safer lands. Nearing the Dark Land of Mordor, it was wise to be inside when the sun went down.

Morning came and Faelind made ready to leave. It was early enough that the night guards were only just being relieved by the day guards, but plenty of people were up and about, opening their stalls in the marketplace or preparing to depart on their own journeys. Faelind paid no heed to the comings and goings of others as he collected Dúlinn from the stables of last night’s inn, so he didn’t realise at first that someone was calling to him. Only when a stick jabbed him unpleasantly in the back was his attention well and truly caught. He spun, eyes flashing, hand on the hilt of the sword at his waist. The sharp words that he had summoned immediately died on his tongue as he looked down at the smallest and most wizened woman he had ever seen.

“Young man!”

“Madam,” Faelind replied curtly.

“I should think so,” the woman said indignantly. She drew herself up to her full height but even so the top of her head barely brushed the middle of Faelind’s chest. “Ignoring me like that! I ought to have a word with whoever taught you manners. In _my_ day we were taught to _respect_ our elders.”

For the first time since meeting the little woman, but certainly not for the last time, Faelind suppressed a wry smile. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had spoken to him like that, but he found that he didn’t entirely mind. Still, he wondered at her choice of words. He had not taken any steps to disguise what he was, and no other mortal man or woman he had come across had mistaken him for anything other than an elf. Then, as the woman lifted her chin to stare up at him, Faelind saw that her pale eyes were clouded with age. Understanding dawned, and he moved his hand from his sword and put it instead to his chest in greeting though he wasn’t certain that the woman could see the gesture as he swept his hand out.

“Forgive me,” he said politely, in the woman’s Mannish dialect. “I did not realise that you were speaking to me. Now that you have my full attention, let us start again. How may I help you?”

The woman squinted suspiciously at him before subsiding with a doubtful _hmm._ “Do you travel south today?”

“Yes,” Faelind said after a heartbeat.

“Good. I shall travel with you as far as Cair Andros,” the woman announced.

Faelind kept his expression neutral even as he felt his heart sinking. Cair Andros was his destination; he intended to book passage on a ship there to travel down the Anduin. “I thank you for the offer of companionship, but I must decline,” he said. “I travel alone.”

“Offer,” the woman snorted. “What offer? It was a demand. When you’ve lived as long as I have, you can make as many demands as you like too.”

“And why do you _demand_ to travel with me?” Faelind asked stiffly, too irritated now to be amused.

“Old Carys may not be able to see much of your face but I can make out that sword at your waist. Besides, you’ve a nice way about you.” The woman, Carys, said that last part reluctantly, as if it pained her to praise Faelind. “I heard you speaking well to the tavern maid last night, and the innkeeper this morning, and even the stable boys when they brought your fine horse. Not many a man will speak nice like that to everyone. Well. Most everyone,” she added pointedly. “I can’t say as you’ve been too nice to _me_ yet. But I wouldn’t trust any of the other men around here to escort an old woman down the road. And an old woman ought to be escorted, young man! There’s orcs in the mountains. Filthy beasts would have me _and_ my old pony if they could, and me with only a stick and my ancient eyes to fend them off.”

The woman’s words had mollified Faelind now that he understood her need, but he shook his head in regret. “I travel swiftly, Mistress Carys. From Cair Andros I must take ship and sail over one hundred miles down the Anduin. I cannot delay.”

“You’ll be on the _River Spray_ and her journey down the river and back again is four days,” Carys said ponderously. “She could be anywhere right now. But even _if_ departure day is today…well, you won’t make it in time. She’ll be casting off round about now.”

“Wonderful,” Faelind said under his breath.

“It is,” Carys agreed smugly.

Faelind narrowed his eyes and gave the woman a look that had made warriors and nobles quail, but she just smiled toothily and waited for him to make the right choice. There was nothing for it. “Very well. I shall be pleased to escort you, Mistress Carys.”

“No you shan’t!” she cackled, and she bustled off with her stick to find her pony.

Feeling eyes on him, Faelind glanced over his shoulder to find Dúlinn staring at him with a reproachful gaze. He sighed, no happier than the horse about this change in circumstances. Seventy miles lay between their present location and the island of Cair Andros where river ships docked on their way up and down the Anduin. Seventy miles, he thought longingly. Dúlinn could have got him there in time to arrange passage on the next ship sailing south _and_ seek an inn for that night. Mistress Carys and her pony slowing them down would turn that into a journey of two days. Or maybe even three, Faelind realised, with a jolt of dismay. A less honourable individual would have slipped away there and then, but Faelind had given his word. He didn’t have it in him to leave the cantankerous old woman behind.

When Carys returned she was perched on the seat of a small cart which a shaggy chestnut pony with a striped nose was hitched to. The old woman’s stick was resting across her knees and she had draped a homespun blanket around her small shoulders. The rest of her belongings, a trio of packs and a wooden chest, were in the back of the cart. Faelind looked pony, cart, and woman over, and when Carys gestured impatiently he sighed and mounted up. He led the way out of town to join the unpaved road that they would take to Cair Andros. They were already travelling in silence, which suited Faelind just fine, but every now and again he glanced over his shoulder to make sure that Carys and her pony were still there. They were, Carys swaying slightly with each plodding step that the placid pony took.

They were barely an hour into the ride before Carys urged her pony into a trot with a flick of the reins to catch up with Faelind and Dúlinn. Faelind hardened his heart ahead of telling her that they couldn’t stop so soon into the journey, but Carys surprised him by instead stoutly observing that he knew her name but she didn’t know his. That was not entirely displeasing to Faelind, but he supposed, after all, that it was just common courtesy. He dutifully offered her his name.

“Faelind.” Carys _hmm-ed_ over that and tried the name out a few more times. The speculation in her voice grew with each utterance and then she pursed her lips. “Are you one of the faerie folk, then?”

“If that is what you call my people,” Faelind replied briefly.

“Ha!” The woman hooted as if something had particularly tickled her. “All my life I wanted to meet an elf. Now here you are and I can’t see you!”

Faelind didn’t know what to say to that so he said nothing.

“Is there a word for that?” Carys wondered aloud.

“Irony,” Faelind suggested.

“Huh. That would be it.” Carys sighed and shook her head, setting her grey curls to bouncing. “Well. And are you as lovely to look upon as the stories say, Faelind?”

Faelind didn’t know what to say to that, either. Such discomfiture was not a feeling that he much cared for, so he stared straight ahead and held his peace until he heard an almost girlish giggle by his side. He looked down to see that Carys was snickering into one of her fingerless gloves. “You may not be able to see my face, Mistress Carys,” Faelind said finally, “but I am glad that you have at least met one of my kind now.”

“Before I’m dead and buried, you mean,” she said cheerfully.

Faelind’s response was dubious. “I suppose.”

“I should like to hear the elven tongue. They say that it is most beautiful. Say something,” Carys suddenly commanded him. She frowned impatiently, but as Faelind slipped briefly into his own language her expression turned to one of delight. “Lovely,” she sighed, shivering. “What does it mean? What did you say?”

“I said that you are an irascible old woman but I quite like you nonetheless,” Faelind replied truthfully.

Carys was silent for so long that Faelind started to wonder if he had misjudged her character, but then she threw back her head and shrieked with laughter. She laughed until the tears rolled down the seams of her cheeks, and she slapped her thigh so loudly that it startled her pony. Faelind didn’t think that it had been that amusing, but he still smiled reluctantly to see Carys find such humour in it.

“Say something else,” Carys begged him, when she had wiped the tears from her eyes.

And so the rest of the day passed. So close to Mordor the road was not without perils, but it was busy with other travellers as well as small bands of armed men who patrolled on foot. Carys confided to Faelind that they were prone to exhort coin and other goods from honest travellers, but as they were the only source of protection from anything that might come over the mountains from Mordor, people put up with it. Faelind had no intentions of putting up with it. When one of the unofficial militias glanced his way, eyes lingering on his finely tailored clothing and handsome stallion, he fixed them with a cold stare and flicked his cloak aside to reveal the sword at his waist. The men spoke quietly to one another and slunk away in the other direction.

Aside from that it was a pleasant day. Faelind said many things to Carys in his own language and taught her some simple words and phrases. Towards the later part of the day, she took over and sang songs from her childhood. Her old voice was papery yet not unpleasant, but even so Faelind found his attention wandering. He couldn’t help but be concerned for his unexpected travelling companion. Sunset was but a couple of hours away and it didn’t seem likely that they would find somewhere to put a roof over their heads for the night. The thought of making Carys ride through the night with her tired pony was an uncomfortable one, not to mention likely to be dangerous, but having her sleep on a cloak on the hard and dusty ground was also unsettling. When Faelind felt that he had no choice but to broach the subject, Carys roundly scolded him for thinking that a night of camping would kill her off. Then, as an afterthought, she added that if he was that worried about it he could rub her back and her feet for her. She followed that with a wicked cackle as if she could see the shock on Faelind’s face and took great pleasure from it. Reluctantly, he supposed that he didn’t begrudge the old woman taking joy from his discomfort.

They didn’t find any inn or tavern, as expected, but just when the sun was starting to set Carys raised her head and sniffed the air. She lifted her stick then and unerringly pointed it towards a stand of trees off to their right that wouldn’t take them too far off the road. “There,” she declared. “We shall stop there.”

_There_ happened to be a pleasant glade shielded by thick trees with a pool in its centre and springy grass that made the horses happily whicker. The water was clear and fresh, sparkling prettily in the last rays of the setting sun. It was as good a place as any to make camp for the night, and better than Faelind had expected to find. While Carys saw to gathering firewood – she had insisted, and Faelind had thought it best not to argue – he disappeared into the trees to find dinner. It wasn’t long before the smell of roasting meat filled the glade as a fat rabbit cooked over the fire. It went well with the wild mushrooms that grew in the small patch of woodland, and an elderberry sauce that Carys cooked in one of her pots.

With the warmth of the campfire burning between them and stars twinkling overhead, the light hearted chat of daytime turned effortlessly to the deeper talk of night. “Why do you travel this road, Carys?” Faelind asked softly. “What awaits you on Cair Andros?”

“Home,” she said pensively. “I grew up there. My father was the dock master and my mother wove fishing nets. It was a lovely childhood. I spent many a day running barefoot on the docks and waving at the river boats as they passed. Me and my sisters would dash through the market, thieving little cakes and hot fish pies, and every summer day was spent diving into the river until we were called home for supper.”

Faelind smiled slightly, his eyes on Carys as she gazed into the past. “That sounds idyllic.”

“Oh, it was. As we got older there were handsome young sailors to flirt with as they came onto the island for their shore time,” Carys added. “Me and my closest in age sister fell in love with the same man. Dark haired and wild eyed he was, with rough hands and a gentle touch. Such a fight did we have over him! And such a hiding did our father give us for it! But it was me he chose, that wild eyed sailor, and we were happy together. Twelve children we had, Faelind. Twelve! Can you imagine? Only ten of them lived past birth and only seven past a year, but I still count them all.”

“What happened to your sailor?” Faelind asked.

“Got himself impaled by a fishing spear, the great idiot,” Carys snorted fondly.

“And your children?”

It took Carys longer to answer that question. “Gone,” she said finally.

There were some things to which no appropriate response existed. Faelind stayed silent and watched Carys as she leaned forward to poke at the fire with a stick. Sparks drifted lazily upwards, glittering gold against the dark night sky. Not far away, Dúlinn shifted restlessly while the little pony snuffled in her sleep. An owl hooted overhead. With a sigh, Carys drew back from the fire and rested her back against the thick trunk of the tree behind her.

“My twin boys were six when they succumbed to a winter sickness,” she continued, arranging her pleated skirts around her. “The same winter sickness came back a few years later and took their sister. One daughter I lost as she laboured to deliver her own child, and I lost another daughter to her cruel husband’s fists. My sweet youngest boy became a man who turned to drink. He wandered off the dock on his way home one night. Found him floating facedown the next morning. And my youngest girl died an old woman. Warm in her bed. She was the lucky one.”

“That is where you have been,” Faelind said softly.

“Her lads wanted her buried next to their father so they could watch over the farm they had tended for the last fifty years. As if they can see it from where they are!” Carys shook her head irritably and tugged her shawl tighter around her shoulders. “But the boys insisted and they get what they want. Never mind the cost to their weak and feeble grandmother who had to make the journey there when they could have just as easily brought their mother home to be taken out to sea! Ah, but I suppose what I think of as home stopped being home for her long ago.”

“I do not think you weak and feeble,” Faelind said.

“Ha! I knew there was a reason I liked you!” Carys crowed, instantly sounding more like the woman Faelind had become used to since that morning. She fixed her foggy eyes on him through the fire. “Enough about me. What about you? What awaits you when you step off the ship a hundred miles downriver?”

“Another ship,” Faelind replied truthfully.

“And then?”

Faelind fell silent and lifted his gaze to the stars that winked idly above them. Truth be told, he had barely thought about the unpleasantness that awaited him in the south. He had thought often of Luthavar, wondering what his son was doing and hoping that he was well, and he had thought of the road ahead and what each new day would bring. But to Malik Jasim and the justice that he sought to exact, Faelind had not let his mind wander there. He didn’t think that he would allow that at all until he could put it off no longer. It was not a thing to dwell overlong on.

“You’re trying to think of a lie.”

“No. I am trying to think how to answer your question,” Faelind said. “It is not in my nature to lie." 

“Sometimes a lie is a necessary evil,” Carys pointed out.

That went against everything that Faelind had been taught, and a lot of what his career and reputation had been built on, but he nodded slowly. “Yes. Sometimes. But why tell a lie if it is not necessary?”

“Tell me a lie now,” Carys urged him. “Tell me a beautiful lie. Where is that other ship taking you?”

At home, Faelind would have walked away from that kind of game. Here, hundreds of miles away from his life, he closed his eyes and let himself dream. He heard it - the cry of a lonely gull. The crash of waves upon the shore. “To the sea,” he murmured. “To a golden beach where the woman I love awaits me. We are going to sit on the sand with salt on our lips and tangles in our hair.”

“Yes, beautiful,” Carys sighed. Then, in the knowing way that only another who has suffered tragedy can, she gently asked, “How long has it been?”

“A thousand years,” Faelind said quietly. “And two hundred more.”

Dismay was etched in every line of the woman’s face as she sat up straighter and stared blindly at Faelind through the flames. “Often I wished to be an elf! To never fear that the winter will take a child from me. To keep my beauty. To see clearly and to wake every day as hearty and hale as the day before. How glorious I thought it must be. But it seems a curse! The pains of my loss shall be gone one day soon. Oh, and I crave that release. But you, you must carry your loss for yet another thousand years. How can you bear that?”

“There is no choice but survival,” Faelind replied. “And you know that. Have not you survived this long?”

“Well, and there was me thinking that perhaps you had a pretty maid waiting for you at home,” Carys said sadly. “Instead I find you are as alone as me.”

“I am not alone,” Faelind gently promised her. “I have many friends at home. My mother remains upon these shores. And I have a son.” He couldn’t help the pride that slipped into his voice at that.

Carys made a slight motion with her hand as if she would have whacked Faelind with her stick had he been close enough. “You never told me that! Tell me about him. At once.”

“He is a clever boy. Funny. Impulsive. Naughty but never unkind.” Faelind paused, considering, and his voice went lower. “Strong of heart. I think that he is the bravest elf I have ever known.”

“Does he look like you?”

“Yes, actually.”

“It is well for a son to look like his father.”

“I adopted him.” Faelind never usually found it necessary to say that. Luthavar was his son and that was all. He didn’t think that he could love Luthavar more had they shared blood, but he found that he didn’t want Carys to wonder if he had been unfaithful to his wife. “Still,” Faelind added, “I think that we could pass for father and son by blood to anyone who did not know otherwise. We have the same dark hair. His eyes are grey where mine are green, but they are similar in shape and we have the same cheekbones.”

Carys breathed in suddenly and clapped her hands in delight. “Green! I thought so. I imagined your eyes to be green,” she added, as if sensing the questioning glance that Faelind sent her way. “I tried to picture them brown but that didn’t seem right. I thought to myself that they must be green. Maybe blue but most likely green. Piercing like an emerald, not deep like moss or bright like an apple. Am I right?”

“That sounds about right,” Faelind conceded, smiling faintly.

“And cheekbones, yes. I thought to myself when first we set off, now, this seems like a young man with those high and noble cheekbones and a strong jaw to match,” Carys said, sounding proud of herself. “My beloved sailor had a good jaw but he kept it covered with his beard. Such an unruly thing that was! I haven't seen the shadow of hair on your face, Faelind. They say that your menfolk don’t grow beards. Is that true?”

“True enough,” Faelind replied. He looked at Carys in thoughtful silence before rising and stepping around the fire. His natural movements would have been near silent, but he deliberately made his footfall heavier so that she would hear his approach. When he was close enough, he knelt in front of her and reached out to take her hands. She started slightly, but a smile slowly spread across her face as Faelind did something that he wished he had done much earlier. He put her hands to either side of his face and stayed there, still and silent, while she meticulously examined his face, his pointed ears, and even his long hair, with her gnarled hands.

“I am very pleased to meet you, Faelind,” Carys declared.

He smiled under her fingers. “And I you.”

“I can die happy now!” Carys added, with what Faelind had already come to think of as her customary cackle. He rolled his eyes, and when Carys withdrew her hands, he drew back as well and returned to his side of the fire with a shake of his head. He thought back to that morning when he had been so displeased by the prospect of escorting the old woman who had so rudely jabbed him in the back with the sharp end of her stick, and he felt a moment of deep gratitude for her tenacity. It was nice to have a friend again, he thought, even if it was only for a little while.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dawning of a new day brings sorrow, but Faelind must gather his determination to press on with his journey.

The sun was cresting the horizon when Carys died.

Faelind had kept watch through the night, so he heard her breathing change. There was nothing that he could do for Carys except kneel at her side so that she wasn’t alone as the dark of night faded into dawn’s lilac and rose. Instinct told him to help, but she was old as the humans reckoned it and past even what elvish healing could do. Their deep talk of the evening before – her losses, her pain, her readiness for release – made Faelind wonder if she would even want to come back. So there he was, well after sunrise, sitting by the burned out campfire while Dúlinn stamped impatiently and the pony anxiously flicked her ears. Faelind hadn’t even asked what the pony was called, he realised, feeling a jolt of guilt so strong that it startled him. Well, nothing to be done about that now. Faelind tried to harden his heart enough to be on his way, but he couldn’t. He just felt sad and empty and suddenly very tired.

“You would have laughed to put me in this difficult position,” he remarked to Carys. He had covered her body with her thin cloak, and for a moment he thought that the garment shifted as if the woman beneath it had chuckled. “Just a breeze,” Faelind sighed. “And what am I to do now, Carys? Burn you and let the wind take you? Bury you here? You seemed to like this place.”

Then Faelind had to stop because the words that he spoke formed concepts so bafflingly foreign. He had experienced death before, of course, but not like this. The responsibility of managing a corpse had never fallen to him. He wondered how humans did it. How could a thing so final be so normal to them? How could the burning and burying of bodies be such a common thing that it was something they faced every day? Faelind had known that such was the way of mortal men, but it wasn’t a thing that he had ever given much thought to from his home in Greenwood. Now, faced with it, he was uncomfortable beyond telling.

The sun was high in the sky when Faelind finally made his decision. He hitched the chestnut pony to the cart and lifted Carys into his arms. She was light as a feather, and under her oversized dress of sensible homespun he could feel the sharp angles of her bones. Murmuring an apology, because he suspected that Carys would have deployed her stick against anyone who tried to handle her so, he gently settled her in the cart. Withered and small as she was, she fit perfectly, with not even her feet hanging over the edge. Faelind covered her again and lay her stick next to her.

“Stop looking at me like that,” he said in response to Dúlinn’s long-nosed stare. “She wished to go home to Cair Andros. What else should I do?”

After that it only took a short time to strike camp and make ready to leave. Faelind wished that he had reached his decision sooner and returned to the road when the sun had been lower, for the traffic was more than he felt comfortable with. But if anyone looked askance at the nobleman, an elven one at that, riding a fine stallion with a docile pony plodding along behind them, they at least didn’t show much interest in the cart. Faelind wasn’t sure what he would have said if anyone had demanded to know why he was escorting a dead woman. It somewhat reassured him when he saw another cart with a shrouded body being taken for burial, even if it did remind him how strange and different these mortals were.

The onset of evening found Faelind just a few miles from Cair Andros. He ignored the darkening sky and continued on. Every gentle breeze wafted forward the unpleasantly sweet smell of a body that had spent a day under the sun, and he had no desire to be about this particular task any longer than necessary. He sighed out his relief, and heard an echoing sigh from Dúlinn, when he finally glimpsed the orange and white lights of a town up ahead on the far side of a curved bridge arcing across the River Anduin.

Faelind had not been entirely certain what he would do when he reached the island town, but all decisions were taken out of his hands as he crossed the bridge. Another relief. The guards on duty there, both clad in matching uniforms of blue and grey with chainmail hauberks visible beneath their cloaks, asked his business. The younger of the two scrunched up his nose as he looked at the cart. “My name is Faelind Elrainion,” Faelind said, from atop his horse. “I have come seeking passage downriver. On my journey I met a Mistress Carys of Cair Andros. She passed away this morning in her sleep. I have brought her home.”

The guards exchanged long and wordless looks before the elder one went to the cart and drew the cloak back. “That’s old lady Carys,” he muttered with a shake of his head. “Told her she was too old to make that trip, her with her bad back and that hip she broke two winters past. Told her no good would come of it!” The man scowled then at Faelind, his eyes dark under his silver helm. “I did _try_ to change her mind,” he added sullenly.

“No doubt. I knew her but a day and I am quite sure that nobody could have changed her mind,” Faelind replied.

The guardsman brightened at that and stood a little taller. “That’s right! Nobody could have changed her mind. Stubborn old mare.” Despite his words, his voice was fond.

“She ain’t got no family left,” the younger guard said, scratching at his patchy beard with gloved fingers. “You going to pay for her funeral, Davith?”

“I will,” Faelind said quietly, when the two men just shifted uncomfortably and looked away from one another. “Recommend a good inn to me and have any expenses sent there. See that the pony is well taken care of, too.”

“Reckon I’ll take Petal home for my little girl,” Guardsman Davith mused.

_Petal._ Somehow, Faelind hadn’t expected that. “And the inn?”

“The Silver Scales,” the younger guard said without hesitation, and gestured for Faelind to pass through the tall gates of the river town.

On the way to the inn, Faelind passed dockside taverns where heavily made up women with loose bodices wound their arms around drunken sailors and pushed them into dark alleys, where late night brawls spilled through the doors and men who couldn’t hold their ale staggered dangerously close to the water. The Silver Scales was set further back in town, on the corner of a cobbled street that a sign said was called Bakers Row. Indeed, all around him Faelind could smell the pleasing scent of bread cooking in expectation of the morning trade, unlike the docks where fish and tar had fragranced the air.

Faelind obtained a neatly kept room for himself and boarding in the stables for Dúlinn, and after privately dining on a late dinner of baked river fish with small potatoes in a butter and herb sauce, he took to the bed in an attempt to sleep. Rest didn’t come. He rose instead and wrote letters by the window, one to Luthavar, one to Thureneth, and one to Aermanis. He kept his letters to his son and his mother light hearted, though to Thureneth he did admit to admiring her ability to travel so often and endure the hardships that came with it. After six days of travel, he had already decided that the allure it had held as a youth was long gone. To Aermanis, Faelind was more candid. He wrote of meeting Carys and his sorrow over her passing. Strange, he thought, resting his chin in his hand and gazing out of the river glass window at the moon, that he could feel such sorrow over a mortal woman at the natural end of her life.

When morning came, Faelind had slept little, but he rose with the sun to request water for bathing followed by a light breakfast. His first stop after that was the post office, a crooked little building just off the town square that had the somewhat musty smell of old paper and twine. The small packet of letters that Faelind was sending to Aermanis at the Temple of Greenwood wouldn’t arrive for some time, for the next courier departing for the north wasn’t due to leave for another week, but either way it would still arrive in the forest well before Faelind himself did.

Leaving the post office to be about the rest of his business, Faelind almost collided with a man rushing in from outside. Or rather, the man almost collided with him, for Faelind saw him coming and stopped. “Oh! Begging your pardon!” the man exclaimed.

“Guardsman Davith,” Faelind greeted him, recognising the elder of the two guardsmen from the previous night.

“Oh!” the man said again, though this time he sounded happier. “Master Elf! Er, that is… I mean… Lord? Lord Elf?”

“My name will do,” Faelind replied with a faint smile. “Ought you not be resting at home, Davith? You look as though you have just come off your night duty.”

“Aye, but someone had to send word to Carys’ grandsons in time for them to get here for the burial. That young pup I worked with last night wouldn’t do it, never mind that he had to walk straight past here on his way home and for me it’s out of my way, but he was as eager as you like to get home to bed,” Davith complained. “He’s my nephew so I’ve a soft spot for him, but a lazier nephew I never had! He only picked up the guard shifts when his sweetheart started making eyes at some pretty sailor boy, but even so he’s late half the time. And the other half he doesn’t show his face at all! I don’t reckon it will last. Don’t reckon so at all. Oh! Old lady Carys is going out to sea three days from now. You want to go? Say a last farewell and that?”

Faelind had been silently marvelling at how the man could speak to him so freely and openly, as if they were friends of fifty years instead of mere acquaintances, but he shook his head regretfully at the question. “I do not intend to be here so long. Still, I am pleased to hear that she will be taken care of. I think, from my short time knowing Carys, that it would please her for the water to be her final resting place.” _Final resting place._ So strange, but Faelind thought that such things were probably important to humans.

“Ah, well, I’ll be on board and I expect many a body will go to pay their respects. Well liked, she was,” Davith mused. “Even if she was a bad tempered old thing.”

“Good,” Faelind said softly. “I will let you be about your business so that you may soon be home, but if I may… I must book passage on the next ship downriver. Where will I find the booking office?”

“I’ll take you there.” Before Faelind could demur, Davith added quickly, “It’s on me way home anyway so no trouble at all. First I’d best send this letter off quick or Carys will come back and whack me shins with her stick.”

Faelind smiled at that and stepped outside into the spring sunshine while Davith rushed to send his message. Petal the chestnut pony was waiting out on the street, her reins looped through a hoop on the wall, though the cart was nowhere in sight. She turned her head to Faelind and gently nudged him, investigating the pockets of his dark tunic for treats, but she had to be content with a scratch behind the ears and a pat on her soft neck.

“My little Loria will be pleased as anything when she sees this pony,” Davith announced when he returned. He shook the reins free of the hoop and set off with Faelind at his side and the small horse walking calmly behind them. “Been pleading with me for a pony, she has. But they cost money. Me and her mother been putting coins aside, but with all the little ones still at home save our eldest two, well, there’s always something.”

“You have a large family?” Faelind asked, not to be polite but because he found himself truly interested in the friendly human.

“That I do. My eldest married at the turn of the season on a ship all decked out with ribbons. Lovely it was. Reckon she’ll have a little one of her own before long. My eldest boy, well, you might see him if you’re going on the _River Spray_. He’s Third Mate. Worked his way up from a cabin boy,” Davith said, so proudly that it touched something in Faelind and drew a smile from him. “Then we got four more boys all in a row. Three of them will be strong lads and they’re for the ships, but Hari, he’s twelve and bright as a button. He’ll be a scribe or some such thing. The only one in the family! After that it’s the girls. Loria’s the youngest of them. She’s six. Thought she would be our last but the baby showed up last year. My missus was as surprised as me. Didn’t even know a woman could get with child again at her age. But he was a nice surprise, the baby.”

Faelind was more than content to let Davith chatter happily about his family as they walked through the streets of Cair Andros. The island was longer than it was wide, covered mostly by pine trees outside the town, and Faelind thought that the whole thing could be walked in a day with a generous stop for lunch. The town itself was smaller than the town of Amon Lanc back at home. Most of it was taken up by the riverfront docks, while the rest of the streets were narrow and cobbled. Much like Bakers Row next to the inn where Faelind was staying, each street was given over to specific trades. He saw Anvil Alley, Tailor Way, and Herbalists Road before they reached the booking office at the top of Fisherman’s Street.

“I’ll leave you here then,” Davith said, nodding to the office. “The _River Spray_ sets out tomorrow. My son’s the Third Mate on that boat!” Again, that fatherly pride. “I hope to see you again ‘fore you leave, but if I don’t then I wish you well.”

“Thank you, Guardsman Davith,” Faelind replied sincerely. “And I you.”

Faelind paid for passage on the _River Spray_ , and he was given one wooden token to present the following morning and a second to keep for his return journey whenever that might be. He also asked for advice about taking his horse. The fellow behind the counter assured him that the _River Spray_ was equipped for animals with a long stall that could house up to six horses. He said that while there would be no such accommodation on the smaller vessel that Faelind would switch to when he reached the meeting of the Rivers Sirith and Anduin, it was common for horses and other animals to be transported on the open-aired ferry. Then, after a moment, the grey-haired man gave his ear a scratch and said idly, “But you might as well leave the river there and travel overland to the Poros Crossing. Time was when the river was the only way to get there, but they’ve built a bridge now that goes west to east. It will save you a whole lot of time.”

Grateful for the information that replaced his out dated knowledge, Faelind spent the rest of the morning wandering around town. He was not entirely without purpose; he bought apples for Dúlinn as well as replenishing his own supplies with some yellow cheese, a loaf of bread, and honey biscuits. Those would do well enough for a few days on the river. The man who had sold him the ship tokens had told him that unless he made friends with the captain and got invited to dine in the stateroom, he would either have to fend for himself or eat the same soups and stews as the crews. Which, the man had added in a conspiratorial sort of voice, was usually the most likely and least preferable of those options.

On his way back to the inn, Faelind stopped and bought a leather bound journal from a bookshop. The leather had been dyed a deep shade of blue, and embossed in the centre of the front cover was a fish. Its scales were mother of pearl and its eye a smooth river pearl with a splash of black paint in the middle. Faelind hadn’t forgotten Lutha’s plea that he bring him home a present. He intended to take his son more than one present, but that was a good place to start.

When he returned to the Silver Scales, Faelind shut himself away in his room, relieved to be there. Cair Andros, once one became accustomed to the lingering smell of fish and salt, was not an unpleasant place albeit one that Faelind did not feel at home. Its people were pleasant and friendly, but he rather felt that not a one of them had ever laid eyes on an elf before. Whilst most had been too polite to bother him, it had been difficult to ignore their stares even though they had tried to hide them. That sort of attention was not something that he enjoyed. His mother did, and she had always taken great pleasure in learning about other cultures and sharing her own. Faelind was quite sure that Thureneth would have spent the whole day in town, chatting to people and joining them for tea or wine. Faelind was content to be in his own company. Besides, weariness was starting to creep up on him.

Sunrise the next day saw Faelind at the docks. There were a handful of pleasure barges meant for enjoying warm days on the river, but for the most part the vessels were fishing boats, trading ships, and ferries. The _River Spray_ had a shallow keel and white sails lashed down, and it was less a hive of activity than the busy fishing boats where crews rushed about at their tasks and shouted to one another. Faelind was glad of that. It took him a moment to board though, thanks to a battle of wills with Dúlinn. The stallion had planted his hooves and was very deliberately looking at anything but the walkway onto the ship. “Very well,” Faelind said quietly. “Appear ill mannered before these mortal-bred horses. I care not.” He did care, but he kept that thought to himself. Dúlinn’s dark eyes flashed a baleful glance at him, and then the stallion walked proudly across the walkway with his head held high and his tail lifted.

“You’re the elf, aren’t you?”

Faelind had been settling Dúlinn in the stable, which was really just a wooden shelter supported by wooden planks driven into the deck. It was divided into six stalls with a wooden bar running along the front to keep the horses in, and attached to that were individual troughs split into two; one side for grain and the other for water. As Faelind turned from feeding Dúlinn an apple in thanks for his – eventual – cooperation, he saw a boy of sixteen or so standing before him. The youth’s white shirt tucked into loose blue and white trousers, his feet bare and a blue neckerchief at his throat, marked him as one of the crew. His dark hair and ruddy cheeks marked him as Guardsman Davith’s son.

“You must be the Third Mate,” Faelind said by way of reply.

“I am him, my lord,” the boy agreed, his eyes widening.

Faelind had become a bit better at smiling at youngsters since adopting Luthavar. He employed that relatively new skill and offered the boy a faint smile. “And what shall I call you?”

“Uh…oh, Swish!” the boy replied, as if he had almost forgotten it.

“I do not think that is your true name,” Faelind observed.

“No, my lord. Just my ship nickname because I used to drag my feet and it made a swish-swish sound on the deck.” Swish glanced down at his bare feet, and as he looked back up his gaze took in Faelind’s boots that wrapped his legs to just below the knees, the suede leggings in charcoal grey that he had packed because he had known that Lutha would want him to wear them if he intended to wear his midnight blue tunic embroidered with pewter thread (which he was then), his silk shirt in black, and the dark cloak that brushed his calves. From there, Swish’s curious brown gaze took in the rings on Faelind’s fingers and his silver cloak clasp. “Most everyone here has a nickname,” Swish added hastily.

Faelind nodded. He had allowed the scrutiny, and as the boy’s eyes darted from his ageless face to his ears and back again at least three times, he resigned himself to being viewed as a novelty for the foreseeable future. “If that is the name that you are known by, and if you are happy for me to use it, then I shall do so.”

“Huh? Oh. Right. Um…” Swish hopped from one leg to the other, and for a moment Faelind wondered if the boy had got a splinter in one of his bare feet. Then, the words tumbled from Swish in a rush as he blurted out, “But are you _really_ an elf?”

Surprised, Faelind briefly lifted a hand to the side of his head. _Ah._ He brushed his black hair back to reveal the pointed tip of his ear. “I am.”

“Da said so when I visited yesterday but I thought he was just making up a fancy tale for the little ones,” Swish gasped. “A real elf! An elf on my ship!”

“ _My_ ship?” The voice that boomed out from behind Swish made the boy’s eyes go round, but Faelind heard a jolly note under the mock outrage. “What’s all this _my ship_ about then?”

“Begging your pardon, sir!”

Swish disappeared, rushing to be about his work. The man who stood now before Faelind was undeniably the captain. His fine ruby jacket with gold buttons over a white shirt with a fall of lace at his throat would have given it away even if his words and his domination of the deck had not. He appeared to be in his middle years, with sharp blue eyes and a head of hair entirely black save for a lock of white at his temple, all bound back with a red ribbon. He was, Faelind thought, one of the biggest men that he had ever seen. Though a head shorter than Faelind, the Captain was at least three times as wide with shoulders so massive that it was a wonder he didn’t break the seams of his jacket. Yet, despite his bulk, he moved gracefully with a sailor’s rolling gait as he strode forwards.

“Captain Elerik!” he announced, grabbing Faelind by the hand and shaking it most vehemently. “You must be my very important guest!”

Faelind hid a grimace at that as he offered his name in return. “A pleasure. You command a lovely ship, Captain.”

“She is at that,” Elerik agreed, releasing Faelind’s hand to thump the side of the vessel with a meaty fist. “Not a ship out of Cair Andros flies down the river as she does. Just you wait and see. You let me know if you’re not impressed and I’ll give you your fare back.”

There was no time for Faelind to politely demur that he was certain it wouldn’t come to that, for Elerik was calling the cabin boy to take Faelind’s pack and show him to his room. A fair haired boy of about ten darted into sight and snatched the pack up with alacrity, and he bowed over it to Faelind before turning and leading the way below decks. Faelind nodded in farewell to Captain Elerik, and briefly rested his hand on Dúlinn’s neck. He concluded that the stallion was still upset for being made to suffer the indignity of going on a ship, because he wasn’t even rewarded with an ear flick of acknowledgement.

The cabin was not large, but it was clean and bright and smelled pleasantly of oak, the early morning sun streaming through a pair of round windows. The bed was more of a sleeping nook cut cleverly into the wall, but the mattress was firm and the pillows neither too hard nor too soft. All the other furniture in the room was functional rather than decorative, too; a writing desk and a chair beneath the windows, a two-door armoire, a shelf bearing a pitcher of water and a cup, and a lamp encased in iron and glass which hung from one of the ceiling beams. Faelind noted with some interest that the furniture was attached to the walls or floor to keep it secure should the ship enter rough waters.

Faelind remained in the cabin for most of the morning, supposing that it was better for him to be out of the way while the crew performed their work. There wasn’t much to do there – in fact, there was nothing – but an idle search through the drawers turned up a book that a previous occupant had left behind. It was a storybook, Faelind realised, flipping slowly through the pages to see that the characters were not fictional and instead bore names that he recognised: Glorfindel of Gondolin, Fingon the Valiant, Celeborn the Wise, Elrond Half-Elven, Fëanor the Great, to name but a few. Faelind wondered that the book portrayed those elves as legendary figures from some long forgotten history, but then he reminded himself that he had lived through the years of that history. To a human who had never laid eyes on a single elf, let alone any of these great heroes and villains, no doubt they were only characters in a fantastic tale.

The ship had cast off some time ago and Faelind glanced up from the book to gaze out of the window. They were fairly flying past stands of deepest green pine trees that lined the far banks of the river, overtaking bulkier vessels whose sailors lifted their hands and voices in greeting. Curiosity got the better of Faelind, and he left his cabin to go and stand on the deck. Resting his hand on the edge of the ship he gazed out over the river, the cloudless sky reflected in the clear water. When he breathed in slowly he could smell fish, but not like it had been at the docks of Cair Andros or in the market. This was a scent that reminded him of home, that took him back to his childhood so long ago when Thureneth had taught him to lie on his front by the water and tickle fish out from under the reeds. Over that was the scent of fresh air washed clean by an early morning spring rain, and under it were notes of wood and salt and citrus. Faelind had never much cared for the river, but suddenly he felt more at peace than he had in days.

Sadly, that peace was shattered by the arrival of two boys. One looked about eleven and the other a year or two younger, though they could have been twins with matching chestnut curls and skin tanned a golden-brown by long hours under the sun. They joined Faelind, one on either side, and looked up at him curiously. “Are you going to be sick?” the elder of the boys demanded. He narrowed his blue eyes as Faelind stared down at him in polite bemusement. “Over the side,” he elaborated. “Are you going to be sick over the side of the ship?”

“I should think not,” Faelind replied mildly.

“Some people are,” the boy added. “Even when the river is so calm. Being on the water if they’re not used to it makes them ill.”

“He isn’t ill, Zeph,” the younger of the two said under his breath. A lock of hair blew into his eyes and he brushed it back irritably. “Look at him. He looks fine.”

“Do you wish for me to be unwell?” Faelind asked, too curious to be annoyed.

“Yes, they do.” That came from a small girl with startlingly blue eyes and the same unruly curls as the boys, though hers were a darker shade of brown. She was younger than them, maybe eight or so, though for a moment she appeared older as she folded her arms and gave them a disapproving glare. “Well. _Zeph_ wants you to be unwell. Bael would rather you not be unwell because he would like to keep his sweets instead of losing them in a bet. You see, _they_ think their little game is funny even though Papa told them that if he heard of them betting on which passengers would be sick again he would take a strap to them.”

“Go away, Kestria!” Zeph tried to command her. His attempt at an older brother’s authority was rather ruined by the blush that stained his cheeks. “It’s nothing to do with you!”

“Keep playing your game then,” she said with a shrug. “I don’t care if you get strapped. You’ll care though.”

Zeph glowered at her, but after a moment he slunk away with Bael. They didn’t go far. They stayed on that side of the ship and entertained themselves by throwing pebbles out over the side and seeing how far they could go. Despite the distance, they kept glancing back at Faelind and whispering together. “You must be Captain Elerik’s children,” Faelind remarked, glancing down at Kestria as she rested her chin on her hands and stared out over the water.

“Three of them, yes,” she agreed. “I’m sorry about my brothers. They’re such boys.”

“They are at that,” Faelind murmured.

“You would have thought that of nine children there would be a fairer balance of boys and girls,” Kestria complained. “First was a girl, but Eissa is thirty so that was a long time ago. Then it’s all boys until me.”

Faelind nodded in sympathy. “That is a lot.”

“It is.” Kestria looked up at him then and shaded her eyes with a hand. “Are you a king?”

“Am I a…” Faelind was so startled that he almost laughed, but he kept his amusement inside so as not to offend the girl. “No. I am not.”

“Oh. What about a lord?”

“Something like that,” Faelind allowed.

“I thought so. You look like a lord,” Kestria decided. “But you are very handsome, and your clothes are so lovely and your horse so fine that you could tell people you were a king and they would believe you.”

“Thank you, I suppose,” Faelind said.

Kestria nodded and hopped up onto a trio of barrels lashed securely to the deck with a length of rope. The green and yellow skirt that she was wearing revealed itself to be a pair of loose trousers as she sat atop the barrels with her legs crossed beneath herself. “Have you got a little girl?”

Glancing down at her, Faelind shook his head. “No.”

“Have you got a little boy?”

“I have a son,” Faelind replied, and he couldn’t help a small smile as he spoke those words.

“But why isn’t he with you?”

“I shall be returning to him as soon as I may,” Faelind said.

Kestria nodded in acceptance of the vague answer. “Is he handsome like you?”

It took a moment for Faelind to decide on a response. He looked thoughtfully across the water, watching stands of trees and tiny settlements on the far bank of the river passing by as he mulled over the question. Luthavar was slender and lithe, smaller than his peers, his features too pretty and delicate, his eyes too smoky and soft for _handsome_ to be a suitable word. “He is a beautiful boy,” Faelind said finally.

“I don’t think you’re using that word properly. Beautiful is just for girls and boats.” Kestria shifted so that she was leaning over the side of the ship, and she ran her hand almost fondly along the hull. Faelind was sure that she was far more at home on the water than he was, but he kept an eye on her anyway to be certain that she was safe. As though feeling his attention on her, the little girl looked back at him and smiled. “Papa is going to invite you to have dinner with us tonight. I do hope that you accept.”

“Will your multitude of siblings be there?” Faelind asked warily.

“No,” Kestria laughed. “Eissa and my oldest brother captain their own ships. My second and third brothers are travelling somewhere on land. The ones in the middle are serving on Eissa’s ship or apprenticing on Cair Andros. There’s just me and Zeph and Bael here.”

“Very well,” Faelind conceded with a faint smile. “I would be happy to accept.”

Dinner was taken in the Captain’s stateroom where wide windows were flung open to the burnished gold rays of sunset and the song of a river bird perched on the prow of the ship carried on the breeze. To start there was shrimp and persimmon soup, which was entirely new to Faelind, followed by almond crusted fish freshly caught that evening with greens and saffron sauce. Rounding it off were honeyed figs in vanilla cream, with spiced rum for Captain Elerik and Faelind, and citrus cordial for the children. The two boys behaved impeccably throughout the meal, respectful to their father and courteous to his guest. Kestria was just as well mannered and displayed interest in the dinner conversations while her brothers stayed politely quiet throughout what they perhaps thought was dull adult talk.

For Faelind the talk was not dull at all. He allowed Elerik to control the flow of the conversations; much like Carys and Davith, Elerik seemed more than happy to chat at length about his family, his life, the accomplishments of his beloved ship, and news from the surrounding lands. In the course of their talks, Faelind extricated small pieces of knowledge that would be of use to him over the coming days. Every time Elerik mentioned ‘the word coming out of Harad these days’, Faelind listened intently without letting his face or eyes betray his true interest. Through that he learned about small and unsuccessful uprisings in Harad that had tried and failed to topple Malik Jasim and his son from their seats of power. He learned that the cruelty of the Haradric ruling family had escalated so severely that even their once staunchest supporters were quietly retreating from court. On that point Elerik expanded no further, mindful of his children’s presence at the table, but Faelind didn’t need to hear any more. It was enough for him to know of the unrest in Harad and the dissatisfaction with its leaders. He wondered if the ornamental palace guards that Thureneth had told him about would have been replaced by warriors to be taken more seriously, and he decided that would be one of the first things he discovered as he drew nearer to Harad.

Life aboard the ship was surprisingly pleasant. Faelind wondered if it was the sort of thing that Lutha would enjoy. He had already resolved to take his son to see the Gardens of the Entwives, but now he thought that they might combine that with a trip along the river. Not for the first or last time since leaving home, Faelind felt a pang of longing. It had only been nine days but he desperately missed Lutha. He often found himself having to remember that he was doing this _for_ Lutha.

When the _River Spray_ reached its destination two days later, Faelind found that he would miss the ship. He had enjoyed Captain Elerik’s bluff heartiness, and the boys Zeph and Bael had warmed to him while Kestria had never wavered in her precocious attempts to engage him in conversation. Not all the crew had been interested in making friends, which had suited Faelind just fine, but he had found opportunities to speak with Third Mate Swish and a few others who had been curious about him. The other passengers had helped to make the voyage enjoyable, too; a young couple had waited until the last night to shyly ask him if he would tell them a story of his own kind, and a bearded gentleman as old as Carys had taught him a new game using polished stones of many different colours. Yes, it was a shame to leave the ship, but he would be back on the deck when the time came to go home.

As for Dúlinn, despite having grudgingly settled into life aboard the ship, he was so pleased to be back on land that he pranced out of the stable and along the walkway with not a single glance at Faelind. Only when they were on dry land together did he give his master a sharp nudge to the chest to emphasise his disappointment in Faelind’s exceedingly poor choice of transport. The stallion behaved much better after that opportunity to make his point.

So small a town was the settlement at the crossings of the Sirith and Anduin that it didn’t even warrant a long stop for the _River Spray_. In fact, Faelind wasn’t even sure that it could be called a town. Save for a ramshackle inn set back from the docks and a handful of small dwellings that looked as though a gust of wind would cause untold damage, there was nothing else going for it. The bigger fishing and hunting vessels didn’t stop there at all, while the trading ships only drew alongside one another to discuss their goods. Faelind was quick to leave it behind as well. Lifting his hand briefly in farewell to the _River Spray_ as Elerik set sail, he turned Dúlinn towards the bridge where his journey would finally take him into the southern lands.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Faelind’s arrival in Harad brings with it an unexpected meeting as the coin given to him by Aermanis finally serves its purpose.

The days that followed were the most tedious of the journey with every step further south bringing with it more heat. Faelind had tried to prepare himself for what was to come, for he had heard that the stretch of land between the Poros River and Near Harad was long and difficult, but the reality was worse than what he had imagined. Although it was half the distance that he had travelled to Cair Andros, it felt so much longer because the landscape changed so little. Had it been pleasing to look at, that may have made a difference. But it was a pale and bland place, just empty plains as far as even Faelind’s elven eyes could see. Occasionally he noticed a bare tree poking through the cracked ground, but the novelty of seeing something new soon passed.

When the plains began to give way to desert, Faelind saw many travellers riding on strange creatures that he had only ever seen in pictures that Thureneth had drawn of her time in Harad. They were like horses but not, in shades of white and brown with long lashes and odd humps on their backs. Some of them had sweet faces while others were some of the ugliest animals Faelind had ever seen, with tempers to match. He couldn’t understand them. And yet they seemed entirely at home on the desert sands, gliding effortlessly along with their riders swaying atop their backs.

There were no towns to speak of in the desert, but here and there Faelind came across farming settlements with small huts and long-horned cattle roaming freely. Every ten miles or so were makeshift villages of large tents where travellers might pay a coin to shelter themselves and their mounts from the day’s heat and refresh themselves with cool water, or else spend a night and partake of a meat dinner. It was in those tents that Faelind regained his interest in the journey. Strangers from all walks of life gathered in them to eat and talk and sing. They spoke in a variety of languages, some that Faelind recognised and others that he didn’t, and where no shared language existed people relied on hand gestures. It was simple companionship, and Faelind could appreciate that.

In the middle of the fifteenth day of the journey, Faelind rode through the massive gates of the City of Harad with a stream of people dressed in bright robes and diaphanous gowns, or loose trousers with flowing sashes and sleeveless shirts that left their arms bare. He had arrived. He was there. His true task yet lay before him, but simply being in the city, knowing that he had made it that far, lifted a weight from his shoulders that he hadn’t even known was there. As for the city itself, Faelind had never experienced anything like it. On every corner he could smell something new – spices, roasting bananas, smoke, flowers that he didn’t have names for. It was a riot of colour from the great rugs hanging on display outside shops to the woven baskets stacked higher than the tallest man, from the rainbow mosaics of tiles on the burnt orange buildings to the trees and vibrant flowers that surrounded the public pools. Over it all were hawkers crying their wares and the distant trumpeting and roars of strange animals. Faelind wanted to look everywhere at once, and it took some effort to rein in his temptation and take out the small scroll that Aermanis had given to him what seemed like a lifetime ago.

There was nothing on the scroll but directions and a little map, and Faelind committed those to memory before tucking the scroll back into his pocket. He was not given too many curious glances as he made his way through the city, and those he did receive were for his foreign clothing and the lightness of his skin. Many people wore veils across their faces or scarves wrapped cleverly around their heads, so Faelind kept the hood of his cloak up. He was grateful for it, unwilling to risk drawing any more attention to himself than was necessary.

The directions took Faelind through the city to a long courtyard lined with cypress trees. They perfumed the air with a lingering woody scent that reminded him of home. Standing at the end of the courtyard was a low and sprawling house of red sandstone with fragrant jasmine framing the arched doorway. As Faelind dismounted and looked around slowly, a woman in a gauzy gown of blue and gold came outside. Her dark hair was fashioned into a hundred tiny braids that brushed her shoulders. Gold hoops large enough to fit a hand through dangled from her ears, and her deep brown eyes penetrated Faelind as she stopped and took his measure.

“Do you seek entrance?”

“I do.”

A young man in livery that matched the blue and gold hues of the woman’s gown approached from the side. He bowed low but said nothing, the woman speaking for him. “Your horse will be cared for,” she said. “Your weapons, too.”

It did not sit well with Faelind to go unarmed in this foreign place, but a temple of worship forbidding weapons was not unheard of. There were certain areas in the Temple of Greenwood where it was prohibited to carry anything that might be used to do harm. Faelind handed his sword to the man and reluctantly gave up his belt knives. As Dúlinn was led away, the woman raised a hand and gestured for Faelind to follow her inside. Her soft silk slippers whispered along the tiled floor as she led the way into a reception hall furnished with low couches, citrus trees in pots, and a fountain in the centre that tinkled merrily. At the end of the hall was a passageway leading to other unseen rooms, and as Faelind glanced around he noticed curtained niches tucked into the walls.

The reception hall was not empty. A woman with unbound dark hair sprawled on one of the couches, the front of her gown cut so low and clinging so suggestively to her that more of her flesh was visible than not. On another couch was a younger woman in a high-necked dress. She had crossed one leg demurely over the other as she gazed down at a book held open in her lap. From a few of the semiprivate niches came the sound of throaty laughter, and from one a wreath of blue smoke. Faelind drew breath to ask a question of his escort, but the woman with the braided hair had already left.

Conceding that he may have taken a wrong turn somewhere, Faelind took the scroll out of his pocket and looked at the directions. No. This was the right place. But there was nothing on the scroll to say who he was meant to ask for or what he should even be doing there. This was unlike any religious temple that Faelind could have imagined. Then, unbidden, his conversation with Aermanis surfaced in his mind.

_“Is it a temple of worship?”_

_“Something like that.”_

Realisation started to dawn on Faelind – realisation coupled with bewilderment and even a touch of anger. Why would Aermanis have sent him to a place such as this? He tried to reconcile his surroundings with all that he knew of his lifelong friend but came up with nothing. Aermanis had known the importance of his journey here, Faelind thought furiously. She had known and yet she had seen fit to play _this_ jest on him?

“You should not come here so angry. This is not a place for that.” The white-clad woman who approached – or girl, for she looked no more than sixteen as the mortals reckoned it – smiled at Faelind and offered a suggestive tilt of her head. “But I like that you are angry,” she added, lowering her piping voice as she closed the distance between them. “It makes your eyes spark. Such pretty eyes you have. Perhaps I can ease your tension.”

Faelind stepped back but not before the girl managed to run her hands a way down his chest. “I have come to the wrong place.” He heard how stiff and sharp his voice sounded, but he couldn’t make himself utter false courtesies.

“Let me change your mind.” The girl dipped her head submissively, making her chocolate brown hair tumble artfully over her shoulder. When she looked up, she was gazing through her lashes with desire in her eyes. “Come with me, my lord.”

The sensible thing seemed to be walking away, but Faelind was so stunned and offended by the turn his day had taken that he could barely form a coherent thought let alone make his feet move. Only when the girl reached for his hand, her fingers brushing suggestively against his thigh, did he react. He took her by the upper arms and sat her down firmly on the marble ledge that ran around the outside of the fountain. “Stop that, child,” he hissed at her. “Do _not_ touch me like that again.”

Brown eyes stared up at Faelind and the girl’s lips quivered. For a horrible moment he thought that she was going to burst into tears. Then she tossed her hair back and pouted as fiercely as an elfling in the middle of a temper tantrum. “You are most unkind,” she spat. “And unworthy of me! I do not like you at all and I think that you are not even a real lord. You could not _afford_ me!”

The demure woman reading a book had not looked up, but the scantily clad one rose languidly and approached the fountain. Her grey eyes brushed her younger colleague with a scathing glance. “Silly little one,” she said, in a voice more heavily accented than the girl’s. “Run along and play with your toys, Alara. There’s a good girl.”

“You can’t!” Alara protested, surging to her feet. “You-”

“Will take it from here.” The older woman turned her back on Alara and stood so close to Faelind that her considerable breasts pressed against his chest. He tried to step back, but she had slipped her hand between them and curled her fingers into his tunic. Faelind didn’t think he could pull away without hurting her. He suspected that the woman knew that too, because her eyes darkened with amusement as she pulled him even closer. “You come with Layali. No silly little girls for you, my lord. Whisper your pleasure in my ear and you shall have it and more.”

Faelind reached into his pocket and drew out the coin that Aermanis had given to him. “Do you recognise this?”

“You…” Layali didn’t release Faelind, but she drew back from him with a soft gasp. “Why do you have that?”

“You do recognise it.” Taking advantage of Layali’s shock, Faelind carefully removed her fingers from his tunic and took a step away from her. “I can guess what brings other men here. This coin brought me here. This and nothing else. Do you understand?”

“Give it to me,” Layali whispered.

“No,” Faelind replied. “Take me to the person that this coin has brought me to see.”

“You will have to give it up to her,” Layali said quietly, and she darted her tongue out to wet her lips as if fear had dried them.

Faelind inclined his head. “Then so I shall. But for now it stays with me.”

A deep breath lifted Layali’s shoulders. She let it out slowly and met Faelind’s eyes for a moment before snatching up a shawl from her couch. Pulling it around herself, she hastened past the fountain where Alara stared after her. Faelind followed Layali out of the reception hall and down a long corridor lined with doors into private rooms. He had a feeling he knew what happened in those rooms. Between each door was an elaborate mural depicting various sensual scenes, but Faelind paid them no heed. His fingers were curled around the coin in his pocket, gripping it tightly, and with every step he felt as though he was walking closer and closer towards something momentous.

They had taken a number of turns through the sprawling house, but suddenly Layali stopped in front of a large wooden door. She knocked, and it wasn’t three or four taps but instead a series of them that made Faelind think she had conveyed some sort of message. Layali opened the door then and spoke swiftly in a language that Faelind didn’t understand. He heard no response from within, but Layali stepped back and nodded to him. “You may enter.”

Keeping the coin in his hand, Faelind stepped past Layali. The door swung shut behind him but he kept his eyes forward. He perceived that he had been granted entry to some sort of receiving room, for a closed door in the far wall hid whatever rooms lay beyond it. Two couches were in the middle of the room, and set between them was a low table where a light repast of fruit and chilled wine had been set out. Papers and a pen were abandoned in the middle of one of the couches, and as Faelind looked around his eyes swept past white orchids in tall vases. To the left were glass-filled doors, thrown wide open, that led out into a private courtyard.

A woman was standing at the doors gazing out into the garden. Her hands were clasped behind her as she stood there tall, straight, and unmoving. For a moment Faelind could only stare at her back, unable to look away. Her gown of crimson silk looked almost as though it had been painted on. It clung to her, leaving her back entirely bare all the way down to her hips. Limned onto her dusky skin was an intricate tattoo of curling vines, pale purple heliotropes, and deadly nightshade. Rubies glittered in her dark hair, which was bound back from her face by a silk scarf, and while her right hand was bare, her left was covered with tiny golden chains that connected a ring on her middle finger to a bracelet caught around her wrist.

“Tell me your name.”

“Elrainion.”

“A lie.” The woman’s voice cracked through the air like a whip. “Tell me your name.”

“Faelind Elrainion,” Faelind replied, letting nothing show in his own voice.

“Better. And what do you do here, Faelind Elrainion?” the woman asked. “Why have you come? And how came you by that coin you hold so tightly?”

Without thinking about it, Faelind slowly eased his grip on the coin. “I have given you my name. Is it not courteous to respond in kind?”

“Perhaps in Greenwood it is, Elder Faelind.”

Faelind’s blood ran cold. He moved his hand to his waist even as he remembered handing over his weapons. A sudden sense of grim resignation descended on him. He could fall back on hand to hand combat, but that would only last so long if the woman had armed guards concealed in the garden or behind the closed door. Letting his hand fall away from the missing weapons at his waist, Faelind listened for any sound that would betray hidden assailants, but he heard nothing other than a bird and a faint breeze somewhere outside. Even so, he shifted slightly, moving into a defensive stance.

“I am not your enemy, Elder Faelind,” the woman remarked.

“Then you should not speak so freely,” he replied quietly. “Walls have ears.”

“Not these walls.” The woman finally turned to face him. “You may call me Raja.”

Faelind barely heard the words. He had long ago become a master of impassivity, but now his eyes widened and he drew in a soft breath as he gazed upon the woman’s face. He recognised her. Not as someone that he knew, no, not that, but he recognised her for what she was. It was there in her bearing, the light of her catlike green eyes, the agelessness of her face. The scarf around her hair kept her ears covered, but the rest of it… “You are of my kind,” Faelind said, a whispered accusation.

Raja’s red-lipped smile deepened. “I say again, Faelind. I am not your enemy. The coin, please.”

Feeling trapped in a strange dream, Faelind slowly drew his hand out of his pocket. Raja approached him and held her hand out, but when he placed the coin into her palm, she simply tucked it into her gown without scrutiny. “You did not even look at it,” Faelind said slowly.

“I have no need. The coin was only ever meant to open a door for you and so it did.” As Raja reclined on the left-hand couch, she gestured idly towards the door that Faelind had stepped through minutes before. “You would not have got far without it. You would have gone on your way, to the palace, to carry out the justice of the forest. Would you have succeeded? Perhaps. Perhaps not.”

“Then, you know…”

“That you intend to kill Malik Jasim?” Raja replied, with breathtakingly horrifying candour. “I have known for ten years. I didn’t know it would be _you_. But I knew that this was coming.”

“That is _not_ possible,” Faelind said sharply. Before he could think about it, his feet took him to the couches and he sank down onto the one opposite Raja. He caught a glimpse of relief in her inscrutable gaze that said, _well, finally_ , even as her lips remained silent. “If I had come here to do what you say, there is no way that I, let alone anyone else, would have known of it ten years ago.”

Raja sighed and lifted her hand as Faelind drew a breath to say more. “Stop. There is no _if_. Let us not play that game, Faelind.”

“Who are you?” he snarled, and he slammed his hand down atop the low table. “Tell me!”

“A friend.” Raja’s voice was a gentle counterpoint to Faelind’s fury. “It was valiant of you to think that you could do this alone, but you need friends if you are to succeed.”

“And is that what you want? For me to succeed?” Faelind asked, struggling to keep his voice from shaking with icy rage.

“What I want is irrelevant,” Raja replied. “You must succeed. That is all.”

Faelind stared at her over the table and she held his burning gaze in a way that not many could do when he was at his coldest and most glacially angry. “You could not have known ten years ago that this was going to happen,” he said. “I do this for my son. Ten years ago he was a thief, a slave to a human _family_ who used him and sold his beauty. He entered my life six years ago. I adopted him a year later. I did not learn about Malik Jasim and his cruelty until this very year. You _could not_ have known.”

“I find it most interesting that _you_ should say that,” Raja remarked lightly.

The inflection that she put into the word made Faelind tense. “Why?”

“Because one day, some years from now, you are going to be one of the fourteen Elders of Greenwood responsible for crowning a king in a coronation that you already know _right now_ is coming,” Raja replied, selecting a berry from the silver platter on the table as the blood drained from Faelind’s face. “You were made privy to that knowledge many years ago – so many years ago, in fact, that your people have had time to build a spectacular palace in readiness for this king. So, if we accept that you have known for centuries that Oro-”

“ _Don’t_.” Faelind swallowed with difficulty and forced himself to meet Raja’s gaze. “Nobody can know.”

“I told you that these walls don’t have ears. But very well,” Raja said indulgently. “If we accept that you have known for centuries that _he_ is going to rule your people as their elected sovereign lord, can we not also accept that I have been aware of your personal quest for the last decade?”

Faelind said nothing. Too many questions ran rampant through his mind, each one clamouring for attention. She knew, he thought hollowly. Not just that Greenwood would have a king. No, that would be bad enough. She knew precisely who it would be. The power that this one woman held over Faelind’s home, over the people he loved, over the fate of the entire world, was nauseating. She could sell her knowledge, Faelind thought, his mind racing and his heart along with it. She could sell it to the highest bidder and maybe another assassination would take place, far in the west of Middle-earth, where a future king lived unknowing of what life had already decreed for him. What if the Prophecy went unfulfilled? If Oropher was lost, and with him his future descendants, what would that mean for the world?

“We do not say his name,” Faelind said finally. “Not outside our circle.”

“Quite wise,” Raja agreed. “You wouldn’t want the wrong people to learn of it and kill him off before he’d ever had a chance to sit on the throne.”

“How do you know any of this?” Faelind demanded. “Clearly you know Aermanis, but she would never divulge this information to anyone.”

“Forgive me. I must correct you. I make it my business to know what is happening in the wider world and to help direct it onto its proper course, but I do not know Aermanis,” Raja said. “I know people who know people who know her. Those people know other people who know other people. And so on.”

“You speak of a spy network,” Faelind said slowly. “And if you know the Prophecy of Greenwood then you must have a spy in our temple.”

Raja lifted her shoulders in an elegant shrug. She leaned forward and ran her fingers over the fruit, her eyes lighting with pleasure as she took her time deciding what to have. She settled on a fleshy cube of something orange and took her time savouring it before speaking again. “If the spy in the temple is an ally, does it really matter?”

“I should think that would be for us to decide,” Faelind replied, his voice turning to ice.

“Perhaps,” Raja said idly. “I still sense a certain amount of hostility from you, Faelind. I understand that, but this is the last time I will tell you that I am a friend. From this point onwards, it is for you to start believing it or not. But I promise that we want the same thing, you and I – here in Harad, now, and in Greenwood however many years hence. It is not my desire to see any harm befall your king. In fact, I would consider it a personal failing should he not live long enough to be crowned.”

“Why?”

Raja returned her attention to the table and took her time pouring a glass of chilled wine. Her languid interest in the table and its contents was a ruse, Faelind realised. The pleasure in her green eyes as a berry burst in her mouth was only meant to distract him from the fact that she was taking a long time to carefully consider her answers. It wasn’t much, but even a small insight into the mysterious elleth posing as a mortal woman was something. Faelind gazed intently at her as he waited for her to finish taking a lazy sip of her wine.

“Because,” Raja said eventually, “the one who raised me was married into a family that did cruel things to your king’s family. She is loyal to him, though he does not know it, and she has instilled in me that same loyalty. We do what we can to atone for the wrongs done to those he loved.”

Faelind was silent as he considered what he knew of his future king. Oropher’s immediate family had dwindled to encompass his golden haired wife Lady Felith, his younger brother Vehiron, and Vehiron’s young son Saeldur. Everyone else had been lost towards the end of the First Age, his parents murdered by Celegorm the Fair, and countless grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins slain by the swords of those who had followed Celegorm and his brothers; all save Oropher’s elder cousin Celeborn, who yet resided in Eregion, and Amdír who had already been crowned King of the Golden Wood. Faelind slowly lifted his gaze to meet Raja’s.

“Those who harmed his family, then. They are Noldorin?”

“Not all cruelty in the world is perpetuated by the Noldor,” Raja snapped, anger sparking in her eyes. “Think you that the Sindar are incapable of it?”

“I am trying to understand,” Faelind began.

Raja’s tongue sliced through his words. “You don’t need to. You are owed nothing. I will allow you to ask three more questions, so I suggest you choose wisely.”

The question that Faelind asked was not the one that had first appeared in his mind. He had pushed that one away, because it didn’t matter right then what Raja’s real name was. “Am I fulfilling a prophecy by being here?”

“I am not knowledgeable about such things, but I believe that a prophecy must be spoken,” Raja replied. “This was a vision. You see, a person with the gift of foresight may dream a thousand dreams but only a hundred of them are visions of the future. Those that may be visions are recorded and studied at length. In that studying, some may be discarded as nonsense. The ones that are kept will be closely watched so that they may be prevented or encouraged. In this case, the vision was dreamed by a young acolyte at the Temple of Greenwood and interpreted as the unnatural death of Malik Jasim. My source within the Temple sent word to me. I, in turn, sent a certain coin to Elder Aermanis, bidding her entrust it to the person who would one day fulfil that vision. I gave her my word that I would help them. She gave you the coin, you gave it to me, and here we are.”

“What was the vision?” Faelind asked quietly.

“A secret warrior cutting off the head of a snake after it had poisoned a child who was his son and yet not,” Raja replied. “Quite simple really, but heavy with meaning. You, a former Captain-Protector of the Greenwood. Malik Jasim, the head of House Cobra. And your son, adopted by you but not your child by blood.”

“And when I began to tell Aermanis of Luthavar’s nightmares…” Faelind closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, the pieces falling into place. “She put it all together. She realised that I was the one in the vision, the one to whom she must give the coin. But I don’t understand why she simply didn’t tell me...” He trailed off again and shook his head. How could his oldest and dearest friend have kept that from him?

Raja poured a second glass of wine and pushed it across the table to Faelind with a sympathetic smile. “I suspect it was a decision that you had to reach alone.”

“Perhaps so,” Faelind conceded softly. He tasted berries and citrus in the wine as he sipped it. “And this place? Is it what it appears to be?”

“It is. The trade that these women ply is centuries old. Better for them to do so here in a safe place than out there on the streets,” Raja replied. “I hope that my girls did not offend you.”

“They were interesting.” Faelind gave Raja a long look, his eyes drifting past her face to the ears hidden beneath her scarf. “Is there anyone here who knows the truth of your identity?”

“One or two people. And that was your fourth question,” Raja said, raising a perfectly arched eyebrow. She smiled then to take the sting from her words. “Your journey here has been long and arduous, Faelind. I offer you the use of our steam baths, food, and private rooms for however long you are here. More than that, I offer you the safety of these walls and knowledge that you do not yet have which will get you close to Malik Jasim. Do you trust me?”

Faelind knew that he was standing at one of life’s crossroads. He could get up and walk away. There was nothing binding him there. The entire mission had been founded on secrecy, and the idea of allowing anyone else to share in it was not a comfortable one. But, said a voice somewhere inside his head, Raja already knew. It wasn’t a secret at all. Taking a breath, Faelind looked up. “No,” he said, and his honesty made Raja smile. “I do not trust you. But I will accept your offer.”

“Good. Go and rest.” Raja’s eyes glittered with a lethal light. “And then, we shall make our plans.” 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Faelind gets to know Raja and they make their plans, he also discovers aspects of himself that he didn’t realise existed. The plans made, the time comes for Faelind to deal out the justice of the forest, where one more surprise awaits him.

The quarters given to Faelind were spacious and pleasant with thick rugs spread over the floors and diaphanous hangings around the bed to protect from buzzing insects that flitted about at night. Raja had said that lemongrass censers helped to ward off the tiny creatures, whose only purpose was to land on people and drink their blood. The look on Faelind’s face must have said something where words had not, because Raja had laughed at his discomfort. Then she had sobered, and added gravely that the diseases carried by the insects were often fatal to mortals and that Malik Jasim’s dwindling supply of coin to the city healers had resulted in many deaths over the past years.

An arched door in the lounge led out to a private courtyard garden with a small fountain in its middle. Clematis and passionflower climbed the walls, and night blooming lilies opened up when the sun went down to release their fragrance. Faelind spent the evenings in the garden, studying the maps that Raja had drawn for him. They built on the information that he had already gleaned from Thureneth’s writings, revealing little side streets and passages between buildings where Faelind could pass undetected on his way to and from the palace. Raja’s knowledge of the palace was more intimate and recent than Thureneth’s, and through her Faelind learned of a piece of damaged wall that a lazy repairman had covered over with climbing flowers. That would be his way onto the palace grounds and off them.

“We have not spoken of the method that you will employ,” Raja said, two nights after Faelind had arrived there. “The temptation to draw it out and make him suffer will be strong, but…”

Faelind lifted his hand slightly and Raja fell silent, gesturing for him to speak. They had dined together on spiced lamb soaked in sweet honey and pomegranate sauce with roasted grapes, followed by a light peach and saffron cake. Wine had accompanied dinner, but with the onset of the chill evening Raja had sent for warming mint tea. She wore loose trousers of indigo silk and over them a white coat, its gold embroidered hem brushing her ankles. The sleeves of the coat were as wide as those seen on many an elven gown, inset with panels of the same indigo as her trousers. She still wore the scarves that concealed her pointed ears, but tonight her hair spilled out from under them, tumbling down her back in a dark waterfall. Though Faelind would not say that he and Raja were friends, yet, he was slowly beginning to extend his trust toward her.

“Whatever my personal feelings, I have no intentions of making him suffer,” Faelind said quietly. “There lies revenge.”

“And this is justice.” Propping her chin in one hand, Raja gazed intently at Faelind from across the table. “Have you killed before?”

“Yes.” Faelind answered before it occurred to him to be surprised by the forthrightness of the question. “I was a Protector of Greenwood for many years. I killed then, but only ever in defence of myself or others. I have never _planned_ to take a life. And you?”

“Yes, I have killed. Not always in defence of myself,” Raja replied. “But never without reason. Does that bother you?”

“I do not think I have the right to be bothered by it,” Faelind said briefly. “As for Malik Jasim, I intend to dose him with enough poppy essence that he will simply fall asleep and not wake.”

“To slip away peacefully, having gone to bed not knowing that there will be no waking. A death many a man would wish for,” Raja commented neutrally.

The smile that passed across Faelind’s face was grim. “He will know.”

“Very well. And how do you plan to get close enough to give him this fatal dose?” Raja asked. “I should like to propose something if I may.”

“Please do.”

Raja reached inside her pocket and drew out a scroll. She passed it across the table to Faelind and kept her eyes on him as he unrolled it and began to read silently. The handwriting on the paper was unremarkable, the language simple and plain, but as Faelind took in the words his mien darkened and he shook his head. “No,” he said in a low voice. “Not this. I will not use my son as a means of entry.”

“Tell Jasim that you wish a private audience to speak of an elven boy and he’ll grant it instantly,” Raja pointed out.

“No,” Faelind repeated, more forcefully. “There will be another way to meet with Jasim. I will not give him the satisfaction of thinking for a moment that he may have another chance to hurt Luthavar. I will not encourage him to think of my son in that way.”

Raja scoffed and set her cup of mint tea down on the table with a clatter. “How nice it would be if you had the luxury of being sentimental. You don’t. Not here. Do you think that a man who rapes little boys for fun needs any _encouragement_ to think of them? It is foul, it is depraved, it is wrong, but when he takes his pleasure don’t think for a moment that Luthavar’s is not one of the names on his lips.”

Never in Faelind’s life had he felt even mildly inclined to raise his hand to a woman. He felt it then and saw himself reaching across the table, grabbing Raja by the throat, and striking her into silence. For a frightening moment his vision was a haze of red mist so thick that he couldn’t see. When it cleared, Raja was still sitting quietly opposite him, her eyes fixed on his. He snarled a wordless imprecation at her and rose, striding inside before she could push him further. He didn’t want to be that person. He didn’t want to feel what he had let himself be goaded into feeling. Only sixteen days had passed since he had left Greenwood, and in that time he had learned more of himself than he had thought it was possible to learn after three thousand years. Not all that he had learned was to his liking.

Raja had the sense and courtesy not to follow Faelind, and she was sipping her mint tea when he returned to the garden and sat opposite her again. “That was unbecoming,” he said quietly.

“You love your son,” Raja replied, as calmly as if the last few minutes had never happened.

“If you believe that the contents of that scroll are the most likely way of getting Malik Jasim alone then I will defer to your judgement.” It took a lot for Faelind to speak those words, but no triumph or sense of smugness appeared on Raja’s face. “Send the scroll.”

“I will do so tonight,” Raja said. “It will go through my network to a source in the palace who will see it delivered.”

Faelind nodded wordlessly and remained silent as a young woman stepped into the courtyard to pour fresh tea. A light breeze toyed with the layers of her sheer golden gown, but it wasn’t that which made her shiver; as she leaned over to pour the tea, Raja ran her fingers over the back of the other woman’s wrist. Dark eyes met green and a smile was exchanged between the two, Raja’s fond and lazy, the young woman’s coy. Faelind looked away from the brief moment of intimacy.

“Does _that_ bother you?” The serving girl had left and Raja was looking intently at Faelind. When he just returned her gaze and said nothing, she elaborated, “That I would take another woman as a lover.”

“Greenwood is not so conservative as that,” Faelind replied.

“No. I did not think so,” Raja murmured. “You turned your gaze away because you do not like to be reminded of something that you no longer have.”

“That is entirely out of my hands,” Faelind said quietly.

“It doesn’t have to be.”

Even as he laughed, Faelind knew without a shadow of doubt that Raja was serious. “In that, Greenwood is rather more traditional.” He sobered then and looked levelly at Raja. “As are our people.”

“Some,” she allowed. “Not all.”

Faelind shook his head and slowly twisted the silver band that Midhaearien had placed on his finger on the perfect day so long ago when they had sworn their oaths to one another; oaths that held as fast now, with Midhaearien gone these last thousand years, as they had on the day that they had been spoken. “I am still married,” Faelind said, glancing up to meet Raja’s eyes. “I still have a wife. She died, yes, but in here…” His voice trailed into silence and he touched his heart lightly, letting the gesture speak for him. “I still love her, Raja. And one day, I hope to be reunited with her.”

“Yes. I can see that you love her. I do not think your beloved would deny you comfort, nor see it as a betrayal of your bond, but I do respect your dedication to her. You need not fear seduction from me,” Raja said, with a suggestive wiggle of her arched eyebrows that immediately diffused the tension.

“I would not think so anyway,” Faelind replied, glancing at the mint tea that the dark-eyed woman had left behind.

“Why deny myself half the world’s pleasure by only worshipping the female form? Beauty is beauty.” Raja stood then and stretched lithely, the moon a halo around her head. She leaned down and closed her eyes as she gently kissed Faelind. Her lips were pressed to his only for a few seconds, but when she drew back his senses were full of her, of her taste and her scent, a smoky confection of citrus and spice and honey. Raja smiled and straightened. “Goodnight, Faelind.”

Faelind murmured a goodnight in response and stayed where he was as Raja silently left. The invitation hadn’t been lost on him. He was grateful to Raja for what she was offering, but no more than that. He stayed in the garden with his fingers pressed to his tingling lips until the braziers started to burn out, their smoke mingling with the fragrance of the night blooming lilies, and by then the moon was high in the sky and the air was chill. Faelind rose and went inside, closing the door behind him. As he turned to seek his bed he saw that the inner door leading from the living quarters out into the hallway was ajar. A scarf was draped over the handle.

“Raja…”

He sighed her name and went to push the door shut, but as his fingers brushed the scarf, he stopped. More than a thousand years of loneliness suddenly welled up in him, so strong that he had to close his eyes and steady himself with a hand against the wall. It was a certain kind of loneliness, one that couldn’t be filled by friends or losing himself in work or even by being a father to Luthavar though that had healed him in so many other ways. To feel the touch of another person, to be vulnerable as he submitted to something so much older and more powerful than himself…yes, he craved that. He tightened his grip on the scarf, his fist momentarily clenching, and as the scarf fell from his hand to flutter to the floor, he walked away from it.

Morning came, and with it word from the palace that Malik Jasim would meet his mysterious visitor that night at ten o’clock. Faelind spent the day alone and in quiet contemplation. He tried to prepare himself for what was to come, but no amount of preparation would be enough so he gave it up. Restless, he would have liked to leave Raja’s place and wander the streets, but she had cautioned him against that lest he draw attention to himself. In the end, Faelind visited Dúlinn, took to the steam baths for an hour, and then passed the rest of the day in his quarters. Raja had offered him company, but he had politely declined. He didn’t think that his own company would be pleasing to her as he darkly brooded and counted down the minutes.

Finally, it was time. Faelind clothed himself in black from head to foot, his hair bound back with a simple leather cord, and dark gloves on his hands to stop his rings from glittering in the moonlight. It felt uncomfortable to leave his sword behind, but he had decided to only carry his throwing knives for ease of slipping through the small places that he would have to navigate. Neither knife was nondescript, for their hilts were inlaid with moonstones. Faelind bound them in leather and wire to make them less noticeable. All that was left after that was the poppy essence. That went into a concealed pocket that Faelind had added to the inside of his shirt sleeve.

Raja came to his quarters and let herself in, a gold chain across her brow securing her scarves around her hair. “Are you ready?” she asked quietly.

“Yes.”

“Are you afraid?”

“No.”

“Good. I will escort you to the rear gate and from there you will have immediate access into the back streets,” Raja said. “You remember the route that you must take?”

“I am as prepared as I can be.” Faelind settled his black cloak around his shoulders and clasped it shut with a brooch of silver and onyx. A thought occurred to him then and he looked intently at Raja. “Are _you_ afraid?”

She laughed throatily but there was no amusement in her green eyes. “You came here for your son. But if you do this thing, Faelind Elrainion, the people of Harad will wake tomorrow morning to a kinder world after three centuries of cruelty and barbarism. Am I afraid? No. I am desperate for these good people to have a new dawn. And if you fail…”

“I will not,” Faelind promised Raja, though he didn’t remind her that Malik Jasim had a son in the prime of life.

True to her word, Raja escorted Faelind through the halls of her residence to a door that opened onto a herb garden. From there it was a short walk down the path to a barred gate, beyond which were the narrow back streets of the City of Harad. Raja softly wished Faelind luck, and when he glanced back from the gate, she was already gone. He took a breath and let it out slowly, lifting the hood of his cloak and squaring his shoulders before stepping away from the protection of Raja’s dwelling.

The back streets were quiet and many of the residential buildings that lined them were in darkness, their occupants asleep or else enjoying the cool night elsewhere in the city; from some ajar windows, Faelind caught snatches of laughter and conversation and the occasional whiff of smoke. He did not rush his journey but nor did he linger, simply walking at a steady pace as if he had somewhere to be but was in no hurry to get there. He was joined by a skinny tabby cat who trotted at his heels for a good fifteen minutes before abruptly breaking away from him to chase a rodent down an alleyway between two houses. Faelind rolled his eyes. Cats were the same wherever one went in the world.

The warren of narrow streets and alleys came to an abrupt end up ahead, opening suddenly onto a large square where a night market was in full swing. Lit by braziers and loud with merchants hawking their wares, it was tantalisingly close to the palace; the great golden dome of the royal residence could be seen in the distance on its other side. But getting into the market meant passing through a city guard checkpoint at the end of the street. Faelind instead turned left into a small café some doors back from the checkpoint. No chairs or tables did it have, just thick rugs and cushions on the floor, where men in colourful robes sprawled with tiny cups of strong coffee and long pipes that billowed smoke. None of them glanced up at Faelind as he walked past; the room behind was a gaming room where yet more men crowded around a table to watch each other win and lose at games of chance, and beyond that more rooms where women less reputable than Raja’s girls smiled at the men who came to buy their services for an hour or a night. Not a person there was interested in anything but their own pleasure. Faelind went unnoticed.

In the back courtyard of the café, Faelind vaulted over a low wall and ghosted through the streets that wound intricately around the night market. At one point he lost his bearings and had to scale a wall twice his height. He had taken one wrong turn, but he could see how to get back on the right track. He crouched briefly atop the wall and then jumped down the other side, landing catlike. For a moment he remembered watching Luthavar study in the garden a few years ago. A stray breeze had caught the loose papers and flung them into the branches of the nearest tree. Luthavar had been upset, but his dismay had turned to disbelief when his elegant father had effortlessly climbed the tree to retrieve the errant papers. That had surprised Faelind, but then he had smiled ruefully and reminded his son that, “However elegant you think me, my little boy, and I thank you for that, forget not that I am a wood-elf.” And a warrior, too, though he hadn’t mentioned that. He preferred not to instigate any conversation that led to talk of his past. Luthavar, young as he was, understood that.

Finally, after skirting around the night market via a veritable maze of streets, Faelind drew nearer to the palace. He approached it from the east and sought the damaged wall that Raja had told him about. For a moment it seemed that someone had finally repaired it, but eventually Faelind’s fingers found a crack in the wall and the tumbled stones that lay beyond, well hidden thanks to cleverly placed foliage. He slipped through and emerged on the other side, breathing in the scent of the flowers that climbed the wall. A solidly built mortal man would have got stuck, but it was quite manageable for an elf and entirely easy for children. That thought made Faelind go still. As he pressed himself against the wall, hidden in the shadows, he chose not to wonder if the wall had been deliberately left in a state of disrepair. That suddenly seemed likely.

Breathing out slowly, Faelind pushed himself away from the wall and lingered on the edges of a spill of moonlight. There was movement on the far side of the garden and a young man emerged from the shadows. The man was entirely bald, his youthful face round and his eyes as dark as sunflower seeds. He wore the yellow and green uniform of the palace guards, an elaborate confection of silk and satin held together by a wide sash around the waist. A curved scimitar was tucked into the sash, its blade glinting silver under the stars, and the man’s feet were slippered in silk that ended in a pointed toe. Faelind kept his expression neutral inside his hood as he inclined his head. He changed his mind about the efficacy of the palace guards. There was something about the sumptuous uniform that was almost comical, but Faelind thought he would be foolish to underestimate the warrior who wore it. The young Haradric man nodded in return and pointed wordlessly to a flight of steps that led from the garden up to a balcony.

The balcony door opened into a grand bedchamber. Just like in Faelind’s room back at Raja’s place, the great bed was surrounded by diaphanous hangings to keep out biting insects. A sideboard was covered with platters of sticky pastries and candied fruits, and in one corner of the room was one of the tall smoking devices that Faelind had seen others using. He didn’t know the name, but this one was of jade and gold and clearly made for royalty. The walls of the chamber were adorned with the furs of wildcats save for one wall where there hung pairs of crossed swords. All around, tucked into little niches, were ornaments and treasures in a display of wealth and power. This was where it had happened, Faelind thought. To stand in the very room where his son had been violated and abused should have brought him to great wrath. It didn’t. All he felt was numb.

There in the middle of the room, reclining on a couch with his arm flung across the back of it, was Malik Jasim himself. A man of advanced years, his hair and beard had gone mostly to grey though in his dark eyes was still a snap of vitality and cunning. Though Jasim did not rise, Faelind judged him to be of unimpressive height. He might once have had the body of an athlete, but the indolence of his years had turned his muscles soft. His feet were slippered in silk and he wore a robe embroidered with peacocks. Heavy rings sparkled on every finger, and at his throat was enough jewel-encrusted gold to feed his city for a year.

“So.” Malik Jasim spoke in a heavily accented drawl. “Six years late. And taller. Strong. I like it not.”

The guard prowled around the room until he reached the door on the far side. There he stopped, eyes fixed on Faelind and hand resting on the hilt of his curved blade. Faelind looked back at Jasim and the full import of the man’s words reached him. Jasim thought that he was Luthavar. The only part of him that was visible was his bound dark hair, which had fallen forward to spill over one shoulder and out of the folds of his cloak. _I like it not._ Of course. What pleasure for Jasim in a child who had grown up tall and strong?

Faelind swept back the hood of his cloak. “He is not so much taller than you remember him.”

Jasim laughed, a deep sound in the back of his throat that made Faelind feel cold. “Good. Good!” the Malik declared, clapping his hands together. He settled back against the couch then, slowly rubbing the side of his face as he gazed at Faelind. “But I have never seen you before. The boy should have come to me for my seventieth birthday six years past. Did your masters send you here to tell me why my birthday gift did not arrive? We had an agreement. You bring the boy. I give you gold. The gold was here. He was not. Now you come six years late to explain? To say sorry?”

“Let me make one thing clear,” Faelind replied quietly. “I have no master. Those you dealt with are gone. Dead.”

“Dead? When?”

“Six years ago. Now you understand why the agreement was not fulfilled,” Faelind said.

“Then the boy…Lutha…he is dead?” Jasim asked slowly.

It took Faelind a moment to find the words. He had never doubted his son. He had never believed that the night terrors and memories were figments of Luthavar’s imagination, that a single allegation might be false. But to hear Jasim say Luthavar’s name of his own accord, without being given a hint or a clue, lifted something from Faelind’s shoulders. If Jasim condemned himself with his own words, that was all to the better. “Lutha lives,” Faelind said finally. “He is thriving. And he is mine.”

Jasim stared at Faelind until eventually a smile spread across his face. “I see. Well, it is good to have a challenge. It keeps me young. So a new contract, then. Tell me what you want. And sit! It is bad luck to do business this way.”

_Business._ That was how Jasim saw Luthavar – a business deal, a transaction. Exercising every bit of self-control that he had, Faelind took the couch opposite Jasim. He subtly mimicked the man’s body language, leaning back and indolently crossing his left ankle over his right knee. “How much did you pay before?”

“Most times twenty gold pieces,” Jasim replied dismissively. “The first time only ten.”

“Why?”

“Because he cried too much! He tried to run, he tried to hide!” Jasim scoffed and shook his head. “What, you think I pay _all_ the gold coins for a disobedient slave? Ha! I should pay myself for chasing down another man’s slave. You know in Harad a slave who runs is branded.” The Malik tapped his cheek lightly with a manicured fingernail. “Here. Then all know what they are. I had the brand made ready for Lutha. Not his pretty face, no. His thigh. But he cried so sweetly and made so many promises. I chose to be merciful.”

Faelind could feel blood on the palms of his hands. He tried to uncurl his fists and remove his nails from his flesh but he couldn’t bring himself to. Best they stay like that so he couldn’t wrap his hands around Jasim’s throat. “I expect that Lutha was punished by his masters for the missing gold coins.”

“No doubt. But he was undamaged when next he came to me. And a _very_ good boy that time.” Jasim didn’t bother to look across the room, but he lifted one hand and snapped his fingers. The guard at the door wordlessly crossed to a carafe of wine on the sideboard and began pouring two glasses. “So,” Jasim said briskly. “Twenty gold pieces for one week. Get him here tomorrow and I will give you another ten.”

“Lutha is very far from here,” Faelind said quietly.

“Then bring him within the month and I shall give you five gold pieces! Time runs out,” Jasim remarked. “You see I am not a young man. But my appetites are still good.”

The Malik of Harad laughed as if he had made an excellent joke. Faelind managed to uncurl one of his fists and wrap his fingers around the glass of wine that the guard brought. He nodded in silent thanks but the young man said nothing and backed away again to the door. “It would not please Lutha to return to Harad,” Faelind said after a moment. He lifted the glass and let the wine touch his lips, though he didn’t drink, his eyes fixed on Jasim.

“You told me he is yours. If you want to bring him, you bring him,” Jasim said with a shrug.

“He would say no,” Faelind replied flatly.

“Of course! He said no to me many times. No, don’t, stop, _please_.” There was a sneering inflection in that last word that made Faelind think that Jasim must find it the most contemptuous of the lot. The Malik shook his head in disgust and threw back his head to take a long gulp of wine. As he swallowed, he wiped his hand across his mouth and looked hard at Faelind. “He says no, you _make_ him. But perhaps you are still learning. You are new to this. And young.”

Faelind made himself say the words with a smirk. “Not young enough for you.” _Come on, you evil bastard_ , he thought. _Keep condemning yourself._

“No,” Jasim chuckled. “Not young enough for me. I am sad that I did not know you fifteen years ago.”

The blind arrogance of the man was astounding. Even the guard had guessed that Faelind was no mortal man, for the suggestion that he would have been a child just a decade and a half ago made the guard’s dark eyes flicker with something unreadable. “Well,” Faelind said quietly. “You know me now.”

“I do not know your name,” Jasim remarked.

“Better for us all if you don’t,” Faelind replied.

Jasim laughed at that and lifted his glass. He drank from it and gestured with his free hand. The guard moved again. No words had been spoken, but he seemed to know what his master wanted. He placed a platter of jellied treats on the table between the couches. They were covered in powdery sugar and smelled cloyingly of rose. “So, you want to get straight to business then!” Jasim declared, popping one of the pink sweets into his mouth. It left a trace of sugar in his beard. “Tell me. When are you going to bring my little boy back to me?”

_My little boy._ Faelind’s blood ran cold. For a moment his vision was hazy and he heard a sound like wings beating in his ears. “Is that…what you called him?”

“I called him many things. But yes, he was a little boy when he came to me first.” Jasim sighed in longing and in pleasure. It was one of the worst sounds Faelind had ever heard, a sound that he would never forget. “The first time, they told me he was nine,” Jasim added. “But he was small. Very slender, very short. I thought perhaps they lied and he could be seven. But it did not matter.”

“Why would it?” Faelind asked softly. “Two years younger hardly makes a difference to a man who wishes to rape a child.”

Outrage and incredulity warred on Jasim’s face as his eyes flashed darkly. He leaned forward and stared at Faelind across the table, but when Faelind just looked back at him in silence, he nodded slowly in understanding and a smile settled on his face. “I thought for a moment that perhaps you accused me of something. I understand now your clever jest. But we do not say that word here. It is not tasteful.”

“No,” Faelind agreed. “It is not.”

“Well, and how soon can you have the boy here?” Jasim demanded.

“I hope to return to him as soon as possible,” Faelind replied truthfully.

“Good! Then let us make a toast!”

Faelind inclined his head. He picked up the wine glasses and rose, making it one fluid motion. Feeling the guard’s eyes on him, he crossed to the sideboard and set both glasses down. He did not rush but kept his movements calm and controlled as he filled Jasim’s empty glass with wine the colour of spilled blood. He kept his body somewhat angled so that both Jasim and the guard could have a clear view of him should they be suspicious. When he topped up his own glass, which didn’t need much added to it, he angled himself back towards the sideboard. As he slowly poured with one hand, with his other he reached into the hidden pocket inside his sleeve and drew out the vial of poppy essence. He only had to twist his fingers around the cap for it to open with a pop so quiet that no mortal ear would hear it. The poppy essence spilled soundlessly into the wine, and that was it. With the empty vial tucked back into his secret pocket, Faelind quietly switched the glasses and carried them back to the table.

“To good business deals,” Jasim suggested, lifting the glass that Faelind had set down in front of him.

“To happy reunions,” Faelind replied.

The two drank, Faelind tipping his glass back but barely letting a trickle of wine past his lips, and Jasim throwing his down in a few triumphantly loud gulps. “To happy reunions! Now, talk to me about my little Lutha. It has been six years. Has he changed much?”

“Very much.”

“You must tell me.”

Faelind must neither say nor do a single thing more. A safe dose of poppy juice acted quickly. A lethal dose acted even faster. He just sat back and watched as Jasim’s eyes started to flutter. “I fear that you are weary, Malik Jasim,” he said courteously.

“A strange thing,” Jasim murmured, his head falling back. “I feel I must sleep.”

“Yes. You must sleep now. For a very long time.” Faelind put down his glass of barely touched wine and stood gracefully. He picked up a blanket draped over the back of the only unoccupied chair in the room, and after shaking it out, he gently placed it over Jasim as if he was tucking a child into bed. Moving the platter of pink sweets aside, Faelind sat on the edge of the low table and looked intently into Jasim’s drifting eyes. “I would say that you will feel better in the morning, but that would not be true. And I do try very hard not to lie.”

“What…” Jasim tried to put his hand out to push himself up but the effort cost him everything. He collapsed limply, fighting hard against eyes that wanted so desperately to close for good. “Why…why...”

Faelind untied his hair and deliberately pushed it back to reveal his pointed ears. “Because the little boy that you raped is my son.” He nodded silently as Jasim, head lolling on the back of the couch, opened his eyes long enough for them to widen in disbelief. “No more, Malik Jasim. Sleep now. Sleep.”

And just like that it was over.

The flash of silver reflected in the glass of the balcony doors told Faelind that the guard was coming before the sound of silk slippers gave it away. Faelind stood and turned, grimly resigned at the sight of the raised scimitar. But though the guard was heading towards him, it was Malik Jasim upon whom his eyes were fixed; eyes that bore the same pain as Faelind had seen in Luthavar’s eyes. He stepped forward, a barrier between the guard and the couch where Jasim lay in death, and reached out to wrap his hand around the young man’s wrist.

“No.” Faelind spoke quietly and shook his head. He saw no choice but to deny this hurt young man his own retribution. “It is done. It is quiet. Strike him now and it becomes messy. Do you understand me, child?”

“But, he…” The guard’s lower lip quivered and tears shone in his eyes. “He…”

“I know,” Faelind said softly. “Your life is your own again. Please do not throw it away.”

Slowly, the guard lowered his blade until it hung loose at his side. With slumped shoulders and his cheeks glistening with tears, he looked very young indeed. Suddenly he straightened and a look of defiance flashed through his black eyes. He made no move to lift his blade again but instead stepped past Faelind and spat on Malik Jasim’s body. With a final dark glance as if daring Faelind to chastise him, he resumed his post at the door. He returned his blade to his sash and folded his arms tightly across his chest.

“I shall tell them he fell asleep.”

“It is not a lie. Be well.” Faelind lifted the hood of his cloak and crossed to the balcony door, but he stopped there and looked over his shoulder. The guard was standing to attention as if nothing had happened. Leaving him behind seemed a better option than spiriting him away; a guard who fled the scene of their tyrannical lord’s death was much more suspicious than a guard who gravely reported that their elderly lord had fallen asleep and simply not woken. And yet, just leaving the young man did not sit well with Faelind. He would not want his son to ever be left alone in a time of need.

“Tell me your name,” Faelind said quietly.

The guard glanced up. “Talut.”

“I will give your name to a woman who will ensure that you are cared for and any needs that you have are met,” Faelind said. “You will know her for the rubies that she wears in her hair. She is a friend and you can trust her.”

“Thank you, great lord,” Talut replied.

Faelind nodded briefly and ghosted out of the room and down the steps. Crossing the private garden earlier had been easy, and Faelind was so eager to be gone from that place that as soon as he reached the bottom of the stairs he made for the path that would take him to the gap in the wall without pausing to look around. He didn’t get far. Before his feet could cross into the spill of moonlight, he felt the unmistakeable prick of a sword point at his lower back. He froze, tension shuddering through his body, and stilled his breathing.

“Who are you?”

A moment of silence. “You are the one with a sword to my back.”

“I am.” The stranger increased the pressure and Faelind stood still as the blade pierced a hole through the last layer of his clothing. He could feel its cold tip against his skin. “A wise man would not need further encouragement to answer one reasonable question. Who are you and what are you doing in Malik Jasim’s private garden? Are you a spy? Or perhaps a traitor?”

“You said one reasonable question,” Faelind replied quietly. “That was four.”

There was a barely audible gasp from behind him as the man caught his breath. That was all the advantage that Faelind needed. He spun around with both his knives in his hands, and as the tip of the sword scored his flesh on its way out of his clothing, he used the blade in his left hand to knock it away. His assailant immediately swung the sword up again, but Faelind ducked under it and whirled, straightening to push the edge of his other blade against the stranger’s throat. Before he was fully upright, a booted foot snaked in and hooked around his ankle. It twisted and sent him to the ground. One knife skittered out of his hand as he caught himself, but he kept his grip on the other one.

The man with the sword stamped on Faelind’s wrist and kicked the knife away, and then he was on top of Faelind, pushing him down. “Stay down,” he growled, ripping Faelind’s hood back and grabbing a fistful of hair. He yanked Faelind’s head up to bare his throat, and held a dagger there, its blade cold and deadly sharp. “No more games. Tell me your name before I cut your throat. Who are you?”

“Faelind,” he breathed through gritted teeth. “Faelind Elrainion.”

“Elrainion?” The man had gone very still. He didn’t take his dagger away but he moved it an inch further from Faelind’s throat. At the same time, he slightly relaxed his grip on Faelind’s hair. “That is not a style of name heard often here in the south. You are an elf.”

Another advantage. Faelind bucked his hips, unsteadying the man, and pushed himself around to deliver one solid kick. The stranger grimaced and drew back slightly with his hand pressed against his ribs. “What of it?” Faelind hissed.

A low chuckle and then the whisper of metal and leather as the man sheathed his blades. He stood up and dusted off his clothes with moonlight bouncing off his auburn hair. “I did not look to meet one of my own kind here in the palace gardens. But I am pleased to meet you all the same, Faelind Elrainion.” He bent down and extended his hand to help Faelind up, and the light of the stars and the moon showed dark blue eyes and a mouth that quirked into a smile. “My name is Baralin Ravondirion.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two ellyn meet under the moonlight and find that they have more in common than they had imagined.

“My name is Baralin Ravondirion.”

The ellyn stared at one another through the darkness, each as suspicious as the other. Faelind spoke first. “Did Raja send you?”

“You know Raja?” Baralin tilted his head, his eyes sliding past Faelind and his gaze becoming distant as if he was trying to work something out. “Raja has never mentioned you.”

“I have only been here four days,” Faelind said briefly. “And that is not important.”

“No. You don’t decide what’s important. I saw Raja this morning and she said nothing of you.” Baralin’s hand returned to his sword as he took a step closer to Faelind. “Do you not find that at all odd? That Raja, one of the only two elves in this city does not tell me, the second of those two, when a third comes here?”

Faelind sighed. He suddenly felt exhausted. “It is not for me to comment on what Raja does or does not do.”

“But I don’t understand why she would say nothing to me if she knew that you were going to be here. More to the point, I don’t understand why she would send you here at all. Tonight or any other time,” Baralin said slowly. He huffed irritably and pointed a sharp finger at the steps leading up to Malik Jasim’s balcony. “Sit there and wait for me. I have a thing that must be dealt with. Then you will come to my home and we will speak more.”

A moment before, Faelind had been mostly ambivalent towards this foe-turned-potential-friend. Now, Baralin’s words sparked dislike. “I think not.”

“The second point is not negotiable. I care less about the first. Sit or stand, it matters not,” Baralin said with a shrug. “But you will wait, and you will do so here in the shadows.”

Faelind narrowed his eyes and rather pointedly remained where he was with his arms folded over his chest, but his heart jolted when Baralin turned away and started to ascend the stairs that climbed along the wall of the palace up to the balcony. “Wait.” Faelind had to force the words out through a suddenly dry mouth. “You should not…” Neither sure what he was going to say, nor how much he could trust the other ellon, Faelind trailed into silence.

“I should not…what? What do you know?” Baralin had turned to stare at Faelind. “Tell me.”

“The Malik is…indisposed.”

Almost so fast as to be a blur, Baralin leapt down the steps and pushed Faelind hard against the palace wall with a fist twisted into his cloak. “What did you do? What did you _do_?”

“I killed him,” Faelind hissed, eyes flashing in the moonlight. 

“You killed him,” Baralin repeated slowly.

“Yes. Get your hands off me.” Faelind contemptuously swiped Baralin’s hand away, and straightened his cloak as he shouldered past the other ellon. “So now you know.”

“Now I know.”

Something in Baralin’s tone made Faelind stop. He turned back and gazed coldly at this person who was both stranger and kinsman, though hidden somewhere deep inside, the name _Baralin Ravondirion_ plucked at his memories. There was no reason for Faelind to know the name, but it stirred something in him nonetheless. _No. Focus._ That was something for later. “And what will you do now that you know?” Faelind asked icily. “Will you run for the guards? Cry murder? Kill me?”

“I could do all three of those things and be entirely within my rights. You _have_ just murdered the ruler of this land.” Baralin returned Faelind’s gaze evenly for a long minute before sinking onto the steps and propping his chin in his hand. Staring into the darkness of the palace gardens, he let out a perplexed sigh. “But I don’t think the people of Harad would be pleased with me if I did a single one of those things, never mind the fact that it would be completely counterproductive. How did you do it, anyway?”

“Poison,” Faelind said quietly. He didn’t see any point in dissembling. He couldn’t condemn himself any more than he already had. “Poppy juice.”

“Poppy juice,” Baralin echoed. “Nice. Are you sure that he died?”

“Quite sure.”

Baralin breathed out slowly as if he had come to a decision. “Very well. We did not get off to a good start, you and I. You doubt me still. That’s understandable. I don’t trust you either. But it seems that we want similar things, so in that at least, we are allies even if we are not friends. Go to Raja’s. I will come there at midnight.”

“Midnight, then,” Faelind conceded.

And just like that, Baralin was gone. He ghosted up the stairs and disappeared into the shadows of the balcony. Curiosity kept Faelind rooted to the spot until he heard the sound of the balcony door opening above him. When it clicked shut again, he made himself cross through the moonlight to the broken wall on the far side of the garden. Whatever business Baralin had inside the Grand Palace of Harad that night, it was nothing to do with Faelind. Malik Jasim was dead. Faelind’s task was done. Nothing else mattered.

The journey away from the palace took longer than the journey to it had. Faelind was on edge, and he had to backtrack more than a few times as he took wrong turns in the maze of streets. As his frustration mounted he started to lose the images of the map that he had burned into his mind. He had to stop to close his eyes, breathe deeply, and centre himself. Settled, he went on, and the going was smoother then. It was a relief to arrive back at the café with all the different rooms for whoring, gaming, and smoking. Again, none of the patrons paid him any attention. As far as they knew, the tall person with his hood up had emerged from one of those rooms. Besides, they were too invested in their own pleasures to pay much heed to anyone else.

Finally, Faelind was back at Raja’s place. He let himself in through the rear gate and leaned back against it with a slow breath of relief. For the first time that night, his hands started to shake and his breath quickened. Not with fear, no, but a delayed rush of adrenaline suddenly coursing through him. Feeling dazed, every sense heightened so that the flowers smelled sweeter and the stars shone brighter as they had in the days before the rising of the sun and moon, Faelind slowly made his way inside and through the halls. When he reached his quarters, Raja was there, the flames in the fireplace throwing her profile into relief on the wall.

“Is it done?”

“Who is Baralin Ravondirion?”

Raja just stared at Faelind for a moment. Then she laughed softly and looked back into the flames. “So it is done. And you met Baralin. Good. I had hoped that you would.”

“Yes, he met me. Of course he met me.” Faelind glanced up sharply as Baralin strode through the door. It startled him that the other ellon had managed to get there so quickly, but he reminded himself of the wrong turns that he had taken and the time he had wasted on reorienting himself in the back streets. Perhaps not so remarkable then, he thought, as he watched Baralin give Raja an unreadable look. “You might have told me that you had another one of us to call on, Raja,” the other ellon said.

“I did not know that Faelind was coming until he arrived a few days ago,” Raja replied mildly. She rose gracefully and approached Faelind, angling her body to block Baralin from her view. Her green eyes were dark with concern as she gazed into Faelind’s face. “So. Your task is done. Are you well?”

“Of course.” He couldn’t quite hide the surprise from his voice. “Of course I am.”

Raja just nodded slowly. Breaking eye contact with Faelind, she went to a low table where a carafe coated with condensation was waiting along with a glass. She poured from the carafe, and the liquid that fell into the glass was pale gold with a fresh and grassy smell. It reminded Faelind of a sunny day in Greenwood. The thought of home, and Luthavar, and everything else that he had left behind to come to this strange place on an absurd and dangerous mission threatened to overwhelm him. He closed his eyes and looked away lest Raja or Baralin see.

“I prepared this for you in case of delayed shock,” Raja said softly, bringing the glass to him. “Lime blossom with a touch of apple and honey.”

“I am well,” Faelind replied in the same tone, but he accepted the glass all the same. “Thank you.”

“None for me?” Baralin remarked dryly.

“You were not invited to this gathering,” Raja retorted. “But I trust you carried out your work tonight?”

“No thanks to you.”

Baralin’s voice had dropped a notch and become grave. His eyes, Faelind saw now that he was looking at them in a brighter light, were not just dark blue but a shade of indigo that hovered somewhere between blue and purple. His unbound hair was almost identical in colour to that of Faelind’s mother, but where Thureneth’s mahogany hair was thick and luxurious, Baralin’s was like silk. His ears were pierced numerous times and he wore a mismatch of trinkets in them; a gold cuff wrapped around the outer part of his left ear, while a piece of labradorite trapped in a silver net dangled from his right lobe with smaller studs marching up towards the tip of his ear.

Unlike Faelind, who had shrouded himself in darkness for his trip to the palace, Baralin was dressed less circumspectly in an iridescent overcoat of blue and green. Brushing his ankles, it was slit at the sides up to his waist and banded all around the hem with gold embroidery. His leggings were dark and so were the silver-buckled boots that ran up to his knees, but the low V-neck of his coat showed that the shirt underneath it was silver. As Faelind took in the other ellon’s appearance, he noticed that Baralin wore only one ring on his ungloved hands, a silver band set with lapis lazuli.

“No thanks to me?” Raja repeated. “Charming.”

“You knew what I was about,” Baralin said sharply. “You might have told me that you were sending an assassin of your own.”

“I didn’t send him,” Raja said, at the same time as Faelind interjected with, “I’m not an assassin.”

Baralin took a breath and let it out slowly. Very slowly. He sounded like an exasperated teacher dealing with two badly behaved students, though Faelind wasn’t sure if Baralin was old enough to have earned that right. For that matter, he didn’t know Raja’s age either. A few things that she had let slip, and her general way of being, made him think that she was probably of the middle to late First Age. A certain light in Baralin’s eyes told Faelind that he was almost certainly of the Years of the Trees, though not one of the earliest born elves or from the later years. Somewhere in the middle then, like Faelind, though as that time period had spanned over four millennia, it was impossible to put an exact age on him. Such was the nature of their kind. Faelind dismissed it as inconsequential.

“You,” Baralin said, pointing at Faelind, “sneaked into the Grand Palace and poisoned the Malik of Harad. You are the very definition of an assassin, my friend.”

_So now we are friends,_ Faelind thought, though he remained silent and simply dipped his head to Baralin’s caustic words.

“And you,” Baralin added, with a sharp glance for Raja. “What do you mean you didn’t send him?”

“He came here himself,” Raja replied calmly. “I met him for the first time four days ago and lent him my aid. That is it.”

“Why did you come…” Baralin had looked to Faelind, but he cut himself off with a shake of his head. “One thing at a time. Raja, you knew for weeks that this was approaching, that I intended to act soon. You knew where I could be found. A simple missive to let me know of a kink in the plan wouldn’t have gone amiss. And when I visited you this very morning, you could have put your smart mouth to use and told me with words.”

Raja threw her hands up in disgust. “Ellyn! Every single one of you cursed by Eru to a lifetime of foolishness with not a bit of common sense in your pretty heads!”

A silent but unified glance passed between Baralin and Faelind before either one of them could stop it. Faelind thought it clever of Raja to have included him in the insult without even looking directly at him. “If there was a kink in your plan,” Raja was saying, speaking slowly as if Baralin was a child or a less than bright adult, “I would have made you aware immediately. As there was no kink, I chose to keep Faelind’s presence and his intentions to myself. Why? Because I know you, Baralin. You are proud and possessive of your missions, and you think that nobody is as capable as you. You would have called the whole thing off or rendered Faelind temporarily indisposed so that he could not interfere. I would not let that happen. He travelled hard from his home fourteen days to the north just to come here and see justice done against the man who hurt someone he loves. Nobody had the right to take that away from him.”

Baralin had listened to the first part of Raja’s tirade with an indulgent smirk on his face, but the smirk had slowly faded and he had become still. As Raja fell silent, Baralin turned his gaze slowly towards Faelind. “Who?”

“My son.”

“I see.”

And Faelind thought that Baralin did see and indeed could understand a father’s need to protect his child, for he said nothing more and simply took the chair that Raja had vacated in front of the fireplace. As Baralin watched the flames, silent and brooding, Faelind looked at Raja. “You might have told me that another ellon would be there with similar intentions.”

“I only knew that Baralin had been working quietly with the noble houses of Harad to help usher in a kinder rule, and that he was planning to help them take out the current ruling house. I did not know until this morning precisely what he intended nor when he intended to do it. He is particular about the secrets that he chooses to share. Besides,” Raja said, her voice softening, “it would not have benefited you to know. Had I told you that another was willing to deal out justice, would you have insisted that it still be you? I am not so sure. All I can be sure of is that _you_ needed to be the one, for yourself and for your son.”

“Thank you,” Faelind said quietly.

Raja smiled and let her fingertips alight briefly on his cheek. “I think the two of you must speak together. I will give you your privacy.”

When the door closed behind Raja, Faelind turned his gaze to the fireplace. Baralin sat there with his outstretched legs crossed at the ankles, one elbow on the arm of the chair with his chin resting in his hand. His unblinking eyes, his face so still that it could have been carved of marble, made Faelind wonder what he was seeing as he stared into the flames. Setting aside the lime blossom tea that Raja had prepared for him, Faelind replaced it with two glasses of red wine. One he kept for himself and the other he wordlessly handed to Baralin.

For a time they sat in silence, neither looking at one another nor making any attempt to communicate. They simply sat, sipped their wine, and watched the fire. Over the scent of burning wood and the subtle spices in his wine, Faelind could smell the lemongrass censers meant to keep out the tiny insects that darted about at night. One flew in anyway and ruined the peace with an unpleasant whining sort of buzz. Without moving his head to see where he should aim, Baralin lifted his hand and unerringly snatched the creature out of the air. He closed his hand tightly around it, crushing it, and when he uncurled his fingers it was with a grimace of distaste. He set his wine down on a low table between the two chairs and took a handkerchief out of his pocket to clean his hand. Then it was back to silence and stillness. At least for a little while.

“I wonder which of us has the most questions,” Baralin said eventually.

“Or the greater right to answers,” Faelind replied.

Baralin chuckled softly to that. “You are new here. I think that gives me the greater right. But I also think that your story will be the simpler one to tell given that Raja has already told half of it for you.”

“There is little else to tell. She has it right,” Faelind said. “Malik Jasim hurt my son as I believe he hurt many other boys. I came here to see justice done. That is all.”

“Fourteen days to the north,” Baralin repeated, mulling over Raja’s earlier words. “Lórien or the Greenwood?”

“Greenwood,” Faelind said after a moment.

“I have explored some of the northern parts of that land, and it is beautiful, but with the greatest will in the world I could not bring myself to stay there,” Baralin said, his voice heavy. “The song of the trees and the shine of starlight in the pools reminded me too much of a woodland long lost to the passage of time and many of its people along with it. A woodland that I wish I had valued more when it had been here.”

There were not many wooded lands that Baralin could possibly be speaking of. “Doriath,” Faelind surmised. 

A single nod followed a deep breath. “How did a boy from Greenwood end up all the way down here?”

Faelind let the change in subject pass unremarked. “He was brought against his will by those who saw an opportunity to exploit his beauty for gold.”

“I am truly sorry for that,” Baralin said, with an old and deep sorrow in his gaze. “No child should suffer so.”

“No.” Faelind had to glance away from Baralin’s eyes and the sadness in their indigo depths. He wondered what trauma Baralin had thought of, what loved ones had blossomed in his mind. Choosing kindness, Faelind decided against asking questions that may invite more pain. “But now the deed is done and I hope that my son may begin to heal from this once he knows that his tormentor will never come for him.”

“Let it be so,” Baralin murmured.

“What about you?” Faelind asked. “Raja told some of your story though I suspect that she left out more than she divulged.”

Nodding to that, Baralin stood with his half-empty wine glass in his hand. He changed his mind and put the glass down on the table before stepping around the chair. When he returned it was with the bottle of wine. “How much do you know about the royal and noble houses of this land, Faelind?”

“This is not a land of which I know a great deal,” Faelind admitted. “I know that the crown is passed from father to son until another noble house topples the ruling house and takes over.”

“Yes. Such takeovers are never without some bloodshed, but usually even the ruling house respects that it is a game played between the nobility. Until this one,” Baralin said grimly, pouring more wine into both glasses. “The last time Malik Jasim heard rumours of a violent uprising, he ordered his lions released. The beasts were starved and half-mad. Many lost their lives that day. Men, women, children. It shook the noble houses and put them back in line for another four years. They knew that should they ever attempt such a thing again it must be done quietly.”

“But why should it concern you?” Faelind asked. “Are you part of Raja’s network?”

Baralin laughed softly around the rim of his wineglass. “Neither one of us reports to the other if that is what you mean, though our interests generally align and we share knowledge when it is necessary. But we have different priorities. You see, I have a son too,” Baralin added abruptly, seemingly from nowhere. “I lost him.”

“I am sorry,” Faelind murmured. “Such a painful thing to endure.”

“No. He did not _die,_ ” Baralin replied forcefully. “I lost him. Now I must find him.”

“I see.” Faelind was not sure that he did see, in truth, but he felt that it would be wrong to push the other ellon. “I hope that your path leads you back to him.”

“It will. One day. I must hold to that hope, because if I don’t…” Baralin breathed out slowly, and when he gathered himself it was with a smile forced onto his face. “Well. Never mind that. I have spent most of my life travelling. Many years ago I came here and befriended a young man of House Eagle. I saved him from a lion attack in the desert, and in turn, his grandfather named me a Mirza of Harad – a Prince of Harad. It is just a decorative title. But it binds me to these lands all the same. It gives me a vested interest in Haradric politics along with the welfare and wellbeing of its people. When I was asked for my aid in removing House Cobra root and stem, I had no choice but to help even though it pulled me away from the search for my son.”

Faelind blinked in shocked realisation as the meaning of Baralin’s words hit him. “Then the thing that you had to do tonight…”

“Jasim’s son,” Baralin agreed. “Don’t grieve for him. His blade was still wet with the blood of the last slave he had tortured.”

Dismayed, Faelind leaned forward and set his wineglass down with a sharp _clink_. “And you think it will not appear somewhat suspicious that both the ruler of Harad _and_ his son have died on the same night?”

“The number of people who might care about that are far outnumbered by those who will feel only gladness,” Baralin replied evenly. “And those who _do_ care are likely prone to at least some of the same proclivities as Jasim and Bashar. Don’t worry about it, Faelind. The noble houses will be storming the palace tomorrow morning and claiming it for House Lion.” Baralin shrugged lazily at the look on Faelind’s face. “It’s the Haradric way. You don’t understand it and I don’t expect you to. House Lion is good. I hope that they have a long run on the throne. But eventually they too will be toppled and some other house will take over, just as it always has been and as it always will be.”

“Did you at least make the death look natural?” Faelind asked grudgingly.

Baralin wrinkled his nose. It reminded Faelind of Luthavar. “Not really.”

Deciding that he didn’t need to know what fate had befallen Malik Jasim’s cruel son, Faelind stood to put another log on the fire. It was strange to him that the nights could be so cold when the days were scorching. He had never experienced anything like it before. A cold day in Greenwood meant a chilly night with flames burning in the fireplace, hot cocoa, and heaped blankets. A sunny day meant a warm night with windows thrown open to the sounds of the forest and a glass of chilled water next to the bed. Sitting back in his chair, Faelind wrapped his fingers around his glass and glanced sideways at Baralin.

“What is next for you, then?”

“I will stay for a short while. I should be pleased to see changes in Harad. Besides, I have business on my own estate. It is a private place a few miles away from the city,” Baralin said. “It was gifted to me when House Eagle named me a prince of this land.”

Faelind stared into the flames. His chest felt tight. All those times Luthavar had been brought to serve Malik Jasim, Baralin had been less than an hour outside the city walls and Raja within them. Two people, two friends, who could have saved him if only they had known… “You dwell here in Harad then?” Faelind asked quietly, to stop himself from dwelling on those too painful thoughts.

“No. I rarely come here. My estate is a place for me to stop and be still every decade or so,” Baralin replied. “It is a prosperous place with wheat and barley fields, and groves lined with trees that bear figs and pomegranates. My seneschal has control of it, and I am exceedingly glad of that. It is not a task that I would enjoy.”

“Do you have slaves?” Faelind asked before he could stop himself.

Baralin had started to lift his wineglass to his lips, but he paused then and looked levelly at the other ellon. “Slavery is an aspect of Haradric culture so deeply ingrained that I doubt it will ever be any different. The last time I visited my estate, I had a staff of just over eighty people who maintain the house, tend the land, and raise my animals. They are all paid and given time away from their work. My estate provides them with meals, clothing, shelter, healing, and schooling for their children. If they wish to learn new skills themselves, they may do so. Whatever they want or need, they have. If something is not right, they may speak up without fear of reprisal and their voices _will_ be heard. If they want to leave, they may do so. I call them my estate staff but Haradric law calls them my slaves. So legally, yes, I have slaves.”

“But that is not how you see them,” Faelind concluded. 

“Never. They are people. My people. I can only do my best by them and by any who come to my estate seeking sanctuary from cruel masters,” Baralin replied.

“You said that you only visit your estate once in a decade,” Faelind recalled. “Where will you go when you leave here again?”

“West, to Lindon,” Baralin said guardedly. “I have nephews there. I like to check on them from time to time.”

Something in the other ellon’s voice caught Faelind’s attention. “You are estranged from your nephews.”

“Not exactly. They think that I’m dead.” Baralin suddenly laughed out loud, an incongruous sound against the words that he had spoken. “Sorry. I shouldn’t laugh about so serious a thing, but the look on your face…” He laughed again and shook his head, but then his smile faded to be replaced by a long sigh. “A lot of time has passed since I last saw my nephews. I am no longer the merry and light of heart uncle that they remember from their youth. I would be shamed if they were to know me now. So I watch from afar for long enough to see that they are content and well. One of them has a son and the other is married. I am happy for them.”

“And after Lindon?”

“North to Forochel. Then down in a south-easterly direction wherever my feet take me,” Baralin said with another sigh, quieter this time.

“In search of your son,” Faelind realised.

Pain flickered in Baralin’s eyes and sorrow was etched across his face as he managed a tight nod. “In search of my son. I am both glad and envious that you have a son to love. What is his name?”

“Luthavar,” Faelind said softly. “And yours?”

“I called him Amdirvel,” Baralin replied.

There was little else to say after that and so the two ellyn just sat in a silence that had become comfortable. Despite their rocky start, Faelind was glad of Baralin’s quiet company. It helped to keep his mind away from the events of that night; the justice that he had served, the sight of the place where agony and terror had been forced upon his son and who knew how many other boys, and the memory of looking into the eyes of the man who had committed those evils. Eventually, Faelind would have to confront all of that in his mind. For now, he was content to let it be set aside until he felt ready to face it.

When the flames had burned down and the wine was gone, Baralin rose quietly. He put a hand on Faelind’s shoulder with a soft admonition to rest. Then he was gone, slipping away through the door to be about his own late night business. Faelind remained where he was, staring into the dying embers of the fire, before he decided that the bed would be preferable even if he didn’t sleep. But sleep he did, and when Faelind woke in the morning, Baralin had left the City of Harad.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The time comes for Faelind to take his leave of the south and return to Greenwood.

Faelind would have left the City of Harad the very next day, but Raja implored him to stay another night to rest properly before his return journey. Besides, she had added with a rueful glance out of the window towards the sound of voices lifted high in celebration, getting out of the city would prove difficult. People were rejoicing. Word had spread quickly of House Cobra’s demise and all knew that the palace and its throne had been claimed for kinder rulers. People were dancing and singing and playing in the fountains, and the great food stores of the palace had been taken out into the city to feed the hungry. Change was coming, Raja had said with a beatific smile. Her suggestion that Faelind walk the streets of the city to see what he had helped bring about had been met with some uneasiness from him.

When all was said and done, Faelind had come to Harad for one reason and one reason alone: Luthavar. When he had watched Malik Jasim draw his last breath, he had not been thinking of Harad and its people but of his own beloved son. Faelind was bemusedly pleased to have inadvertently played a role in any changes that came to the land, but the true victory belonged to the everyday people – the healers who did their best with what they had, the slave owners who went hungry so that their workers could eat, the citizens who had endured a lifetime of hardship and cruelty. This day was theirs, and Faelind was content to listen from afar.

So it was that he and Raja could be found in a shaded corner of the private garden outside his rooms, sipping from glasses of a refreshing pink drink that tasted of hibiscus and fizzed pleasantly in the mouth. “Soon enough Harad will crown her new ruler,” Raja murmured, tilting her head against the back of her chair and closing her eyes. She smiled to hear drums beating out in the city. “As will Greenwood.”

Faelind made a _hmm_ of acknowledgement to that. He still did not feel comfortable speaking openly about such things so far from home. “Perhaps not so very soon. I think it is yet a while away.”

“You don’t sound excited about the prospect,” Raja observed.

“It will happen when it happens,” Faelind replied with a dismissive wave of his hand. “It is difficult to be excited about a thing when you have no idea when it will come to pass, especially when you have already known of it for nearly a thousand years. My youngest colleagues, Nithaniel and Feredir, only learned of the prophecy when they were sworn in as Elders these last few centuries. The novelty of the idea has not yet worn off for them.”

“Does any of the Circle of Elders oppose it?”

“Elder Serellon was not best pleased and he needed to be talked around,” Faelind conceded. “But that is normal for him. He likes to challenge and indeed to be challenging. The only one of the Elders to have entirely opposed the prophecy was Nithaniel’s predecessor. She was so against the idea of a foreign lord ruling our people that she resigned from her position.”

“What of the people?” Raja asked curiously. “Do you think they will accept it?”

That question required much deeper thought and a more careful piecing together of words. “I think,” Faelind said finally, “that most of the people of Greenwood will readily accept a ruling family. Over the years, rumours and vague pieces of information have been allowed to move through the forest. It is too great a secret to entrust to everyone, but at the very least the idea has been planted and we have some understanding of public feeling. On the whole, it is positive. Our Nandorin kin in the north will prove trickiest of all. If the King allows them their independence, things will go easier for everyone.”

“I will be most interested to see it all play out,” Raja murmured.

Faelind nodded idly and sipped from his glass. The cold drink within was a pleasant counterpoint to the heat of the day. “I was surprised that Baralin left so quickly and that he has not returned.”

“It is his way,” Raja replied, unconcerned. “He may come back here next week or I may not see him for another twenty years. He comes and goes as he pleases. Perhaps you shall see him next before I do.”

“Why would I see him?”

“You have someone in common.”

Faelind stared at Raja. “Who?”

“The very person of whom we have just been speaking,” Raja said dryly. “Your future king and his brother are grandsons to Baralin’s sister.”

Suddenly, Faelind knew why _Baralin Ravondirion_ had sounded so familiar to him. He had never been inclined to learn all about the extended family of his future king but he did at least know Oropher’s immediate familial line; Oropher, son of Neldiel, daughter of Siliveth, daughter of _Ravondir_. That realisation was followed by a memory of the midnight conversation that Faelind and Baralin had shared in front of the fireplace. _Nephews in Lindon. Of course._ So, Baralin was Oropher’s great-uncle. Faelind thought ruefully that he really ought to have put those pieces together much sooner and without needing help from Raja. He decided to put that down to the events of the previous evening. He couldn’t be expected to assassinate a foreign ruler _and_ perfectly make such connections all in the same space of time.

“I hardly think that I will see Baralin before you, Raja,” Faelind said. “He told me that his nephews believe him to be dead and that he only ever watches them from afar when he is not busy searching for his missing son. If he comes to look upon his nephews in Greenwood when they are there, it will not be out in the open.”

“Things may be different if Baralin ever finds that son of his,” Raja replied pensively. “Right now that is all he lives for.”

“What if his son is dead?”

“Baralin does not believe that to be so,” Raja said. “He is adamant that the child lives and is yet on this side of the sea. He just needs to be in the right place at the right time.”

“And the world is big,” Faelind murmured.

“It is at that,” Raja said with a sigh.

So passed Faelind’s last day in the City of Harad. He left the following morning in the blue and grey hours before dawn to get ahead of the heat of the day. Raja’s house was quiet, the women and the servants all asleep, but she rose to bid him farewell with a kiss on the cheek and a promise that she had sent word of Malik Jasim’s death through her network of spies. She had already asked Faelind if he did not want to give Luthavar the news himself, but he had just smiled and shook his head. It did not matter to him from whom Lutha heard the news. What mattered was that Lutha heard it as soon as possible.

If Faelind’s horse had been upset with him for the indignity of taking a ship down the river, he was furious to have been stabled for the last five days. Faelind couldn’t blame him for that, so he accepted the deliberately rough headbutt that Dúlinn gave him. Dúlinn stamped and stomped more loudly than was necessary on their way out of the city, and once they made it out into the open he fairly flew across the plains. Faelind let the stallion do as he pleased. It would be easier for them both if he tolerated Dúlinn’s waspishness.

The return journey passed more swiftly than the outward one. Though Faelind spent roughly the same amount of time crossing the expansive land between Near Harad and the Crossings of the Poros River, from that point on everything went faster. The extra night that he had spent at Raja’s meant that he was there when the _River Spray_ docked at the nameless little harbour it had brought him to before. It made Faelind sigh to see how sullen the sight of the ship made Dúlinn, especially when they had just started to make friends with one another again, but he was cheered by the warm welcome that he received on board from Captain Elerik, Kestria and her brothers, and the Third Mate Swish. They were pleased to see him, and they delighted in telling him the news from Harad that he already knew.

On the way to Harad, Faelind had spent two nights at Cair Andros waiting for the ship to leave. On his way back, he lingered only long enough to buy some fresh supplies and to ask Guardsman Davith how the little pony Petal was settling in with his family. Faelind was glad to hear both that Petal was happy in her new home and that many people had boarded the ship to pay their final respects to Carys. Guardsman Davith wanted to stay and chat as much as he had the last time, but Faelind managed to politely extricate himself. He mounted up and left Cair Andros behind.

It was four days later that Faelind crossed the southern border of Greenwood. Entering the woods was like having a great weight lifted from his shoulders. He had to stop and close his eyes in relief as he breathed in the fresh scents of oak and pine and wildflowers. For a wonder, Dúlinn tolerated that, only reaching around to gently nudge Faelind’s knee with his long nose. With a deep breath, Faelind opened his eyes and nodded. “Ride on, my friend,” he murmured. “Take us home.”

The sun had set by the time Faelind got home. That meant his household staff had already left for their own homes and would not return until morning. With a wistful look for the house where lit windows beckoned him, Faelind saw to settling Dúlinn in the stables himself and giving the stallion a proper brush before covering him with a rug and filling his troughs with water and grains. He rested his hand on Dúlinn’s neck before he left, and the stallion rumbled affectionately at him. Finally, it was time to go inside. Faelind washed his hands at the water pump outside the stables, and once he had brushed stray bits of dust and hay from his clothing, he picked up his pack and went inside. 

“You were gone for twenty-eight days,” said a voice from the lounge doorway. “I hope you brought me lots of presents.”

“I suppose whether or not you get them will depend upon how well you behaved.” Faelind managed to keep a stern expression in place only for a few moments before the sight of his son standing there turned it into a smile. He set down his pack and opened his arms, suddenly desperate to have Lutha in them after nearly a month apart. “Come here, Luthavar.”

Lutha laughed and closed the distance between them, flinging himself into his father’s arms so that Faelind had to catch him around the waist. “I missed you so much! I thought you might be gone for days yet.”

“I came home as quickly as I could, my little boy.” As he held Lutha, Faelind’s eyes flashed with the memory of all that he had learned from Malik Jasim. He closed his eyes and took a breath, inhaling the scent of citrus sweetened with honey that clung to his son. “My elfling,” he amended quietly. “I missed you, too. So very much. I promise that I will not leave you again for a long time. Have you been well, Luthavar?”

“Yes, other than missing you terribly. And, well, I did have some bad dreams the first few nights you were gone,” Lutha admitted. “Nestorion’s medicine fixed it, though.”

That made Faelind wince, but he was distracted from his guilt when Lutha suddenly drew back with a gasp. “What is it, my elfling?”

“He died!”

Faelind reminded himself to behave as though he didn’t know what was coming. “Nestorion?” he asked mildly.

“What? Ada, no! _He_ died. _Him_.” Lutha stood on tiptoes to whisper in Faelind’s ear, “The Malik of Harad.”

“Did he indeed,” Faelind said softly.

“Daernana Thureneth told me that Elder Aermanis had been sent word that he had died, and his son too, and all of Harad is happy because they’re going to have better rulers now,” Lutha said, as excitable as Faelind had ever heard him. But as he chattered, tears filled his eyes, and he gripped the front of Faelind’s tunic with trembling hands. “Ada. Ada, he’s dead. He’s gone and he’s not coming back. He can never hurt me again, not ever. I always knew deep down that I was safe. But now I’m _free_.”

“You are,” Faelind agreed quietly, and he drew Lutha back into his arms. “Now you can live again.”

Faelind just held Lutha in silence then as days of pent up relief spilled out of the elfling through his tears. Feeling the surprising sting of tears at the back of his own eyes, Faelind glanced up to the ceiling, willing them away, and when he lowered his gaze again it was to see his mother standing on the stairs with one hand pressed to her mouth. Thureneth smiled tearfully at him, and the two exchanged a wordless nod of understanding before Faelind turned his face into Lutha’s hair.

“Come, let us sit together and talk,” he murmured.

“Presents?”

Faelind laughed softly at his son’s hopeful tone. “Yes, my elfling. Presents.”

Picking up the pack by its leather strap and starting to pull it towards the living room, Lutha wrinkled his nose. “Why are you calling me that?”

“What, _my elfling_?” Faelind replied, startled by the question. Thureneth had come the rest of the way down the stairs, and he greeted her with a brief embrace and a kiss on the cheek before turning his gaze back to Lutha. “You do not like it?”

“It’s not that I don’t like it,” Lutha said. “I just like the other name better.”

Faelind managed to hide his surprise. “I had not realised.”

“It’s important. When we first met, you just called me _little boy_ as if I was a constant irritation to you – which I probably was, to be fair – and then the first time you said _my little boy_ I don’t think you even knew it. But I heard it, and it made me feel…cared for, I suppose.” Lutha bit his lower lip, and his gaze went dark and his expression distant. Faelind knew with a sinking heart that Lutha was looking into the past at a man who had also used that name for him. Then, the elfling took a breath and smiled. “You made that name mine, Ada. You made it something special. I don’t want you to call me anything else.”

“Not even when you have lived a thousand years and more?” Faelind asked, partly to tease his son but mostly to buy himself time to decide if he felt comfortable using the term of endearment.

“Especially not then,” Lutha said with a laugh.

Faelind smiled slightly. It didn’t matter if he was comfortable or not. Luthavar mattered. “Go on into the living room then, my little boy. I will be there in a moment.”

“With presents?”

“Naturally.”

While Lutha disappeared with the travelling pack in his arms, Faelind exchanged a weary smile with Thureneth. She returned it and touched his arm affectionately. “You did it.”

“How did you even know?” Faelind asked, keeping his voice low.

“I am your mother,” Thureneth replied. “Mothers know. Are you well, Faelind?”

“It was not always easy,” he admitted. “Naneth, we will speak later. I promise. But right now…”

“Go,” Thureneth said, smiling. “Be with your son.”

Faelind returned the smile and walked through the house to the living room to find Lutha sitting cross-legged in the middle of the settee. The pack that he had brought in was on the ottoman, and he had tucked his hands under his thighs as if to stop himself giving in to temptation. “Well, my little boy,” Faelind said lightly, seating himself on the edge of the ottoman, facing his elfling. “Did you behave well in my absence or should I withhold your presents?”

The dismay on Lutha’s face was all the answer that Faelind needed. “I didn’t think you were serious about that!”

“I was not,” Faelind said with a resigned smile, taking pity on the boy. “I was teasing.”

“You’re too good at not showing anything on your face. I can never tell when you’re teasing,” Lutha complained. He squirmed, looking like an excitable puppy and an impatient elfling all at once. “Ada. Presents, please.”

Faelind laughed softly and opened the pack to take out the gifts that he had brought home. Once upon a time, he would never have imagined that he would be this indulgent father taking pleasure from watching his son examine gifts, but that was what he had become and he would not change it for anything. There was the journal that he had bought in Cair Andros embossed with the mother-of-pearl fish, and he had also chosen a selection of river pearls with little holes in them for Lutha’s bead collection. He had not brought anything back from Harad but had instead stopped briefly in a small settlement just inside Greenwood to buy sweets and some buns swirled with orange blossom honey.

Lutha investigated each and every gift at length, though he didn’t set any of them aside once he had finished looking. Instead he hoarded them in his lap, possessive of them, and a brief flicker of jealousy sparked in his eyes when Thureneth came in and asked to look at the gifts. Neither she nor Faelind made anything of it. What may have been intolerable in a child who had grown up spoilt and privileged was less so in Lutha, and Thureneth was prompt to return the presents to him once she had looked at them. Six years was not quite long enough for Lutha to forget that there had been a time when anything that he treasured could be taken from him.

The evening passed pleasantly, and when it was time for Lutha to go to bed, Faelind went upstairs with him. The elfling had already changed into his nightclothes, and while he disappeared into the bathing chamber to scrub his teeth with peppermint paste, Faelind saw to turning down the bedcovers and drawing the curtains. He turned around from the curtains to see Lutha sitting on the edge of the bed, holding a glass vial and staring at the liquid within.

“I don’t know if I should still take the sleeping draught.”

“Have you continued taking it since you heard the news from Harad?” Faelind asked.

Lutha nodded and pulled his legs up onto the bed, crossing them beneath himself. “Yes. But now that you’re back maybe I don’t need to?”

The hopeful inflection in those words made Faelind wonder. He crouched in front of Lutha and took the vial into his own hand, slowly rolling it back and forth across his palm. “Listen to me, Luthavar,” he said quietly, in the sort of voice he used when he wanted to make sure he had his son’s attention. “There is no shame in using whatever you need to help you. Taking a sleeping draught does not lessen you in my eyes and it certainly does not make you any less brave or strong.” Faelind paused to let his words sink in. “That said,” he added, “I do understand that you may not wish to be reliant on this. I am not a healer, so I will defer to Nestorion, but I would think that you ought to gradually lower the dosage rather than stopping it suddenly. Take the full dose tonight and then tomorrow we shall pay a visit to Nestorion and see what he says. Is that fair?”

“That’s fair,” Lutha agreed. Taking the vial back from Faelind, he uncapped it and tilted his head back a little to let six drops fall into his mouth from the glass pipette. The taste made him grimace as he put the vial back on the bedside table. “Horrible.”

“I am sorry, my little boy,” Faelind said sympathetically, rising gracefully and sitting on the edge of the bed.

“I told Nestorion that if he made it taste nice you would pay him double,” Lutha said. He frowned at his father as Faelind arched both eyebrows at him. “But Nestorion said that he wasn’t going to add anything to the mixture that might change the way it worked, and that you couldn’t pay him double because he had already refused to take any payment from you.”

“That is so,” Faelind replied. “And I would prefer that you _not_ attempt to bribe the healers, Luthavar.”

Lutha gave a quick nod and then hastily moved on as if he thought that Faelind might be truly displeased with him. “Can we talk before I fall asleep? I want to tell you things.” As Faelind nodded encouragingly, Lutha curled on his side beneath the bedcovers and toyed with the edge of his pillow. “When I heard that Malik Jasim had died, I was happy. Or…well, that sounds bad if I say that I was happy about a man dying.”

“It is understandable that you would be relieved,” Faelind said.

“Yes, relieved,” Lutha said, looking glad to have a different word that he could use. “And I’m still relieved. I really am. But a couple of nights ago, I…I cried. I was thinking about Malik Jasim being dead and I cried. Not because of the things that he did to hurt me or because I was scared of him but because he was _dead._ And then I cried more because I didn’t understand why I would cry about that. It was just so stupid and I was so angry with myself.”

“Nobody can judge you for your feelings if they have not endured what you have, Luthavar.” Faelind stopped, considering, and then amended his words. “Neither can anyone who _has_ endured similar, because your experiences are your own. How you respond to them, what you feel about them, is a matter for you. Feelings are complicated. You do not need to answer for them.”

“But I don’t understand why I would cry for him,” Lutha whispered. “It felt like I was betraying myself for crying over a man who hurt me so much.”

“The very cruel are often very clever,” Faelind said with a soft sigh. “Jasim bought you with kindness. Yes, he hurt you. In the worst of ways. But you have told me also how he gave you sweets and pretty trinkets, even a spotted cat. You have told me that he dried your tears and stroked your hair as a healer tended to you.”

Lutha’s grey eyes were haunted and dark with the pain of his memories. “Only so he could use me again.”

“Yes,” Faelind agreed gravely. “But you were a little boy bereft of love and affection. The only mother you had ever known was gone. The only father you knew beat you and used you. I am not surprised that you took whatever morsels of kindness and gentleness Jasim gave you even if you knew that they were not sincere. And kindness, even with an ulterior motive behind it, will leave its mark. Just as deeply as cruelty does.”

“So there’s nothing wrong with me?” Lutha asked softly.

“No,” Faelind promised him. “There is nothing wrong with you.”

A short while later when Lutha’s eyes had fallen shut and his breathing had deepened, Faelind leaned over to tuck the covers more securely around him. He pressed a kiss to his son’s brow and then rose, pausing on his way out of the room to turn down the lamps. At the door he paused a second time, glancing over his shoulder to give Lutha a second look. Finally, he made his way downstairs. He joined Thureneth in the living room and gave her a small but grateful smile as she rose to pour a glass of brandy. He sipped it, enjoying the warmth and sweetness of the liquor.

“So,” Thureneth said quietly.

Faelind couldn’t help sighing at the prompt. “I am fine,” he assured his mother. “I did what I did and I feel nothing but relief that it is over.”

“Perhaps you shall feel more as time goes on,” Thureneth suggested. “Strong emotions can often be delayed.”

“Perhaps so. If I do then I will deal with it and if not then there is no need for concern,” Faelind said firmly. He did feel some remorse at the resignation in Thureneth’s eyes. As the long years had passed and she had settled down and matured, she had developed a tendency to be overzealous in her attempts at maternal affection. Faelind knew that it was her way of trying to make up for the mistakes that she had made in his youth, but that wasn’t something that he could always indulge. It certainly wasn’t then. “There are things I would speak of with you,” he added, relieved when Thureneth let herself be distracted. “I met two people in the City of Harad. Two of our kind.”

“Our kind?” Thureneth echoed, her curiosity piqued. “What were their names?”

“I cannot tell you the true name of the first. She went by Raja but her true name she never revealed,” Faelind said.

“Raja,” Thureneth repeated with a thoughtful nod. “That is a Haradric name. It means _hope_. What else?”

“She was duskier of skin than you and me, her eyes green and her hair dark, and she was tattooed from her shoulders to her lower back,” Faelind replied. “I could not place her accent. It was of many lands and none as if she had spent her life on the move. I believe her to be of the First Age though I may be wrong in that. She wore scarves around her head to hide her ears, and I suspect that was only the slightest of disguises she was capable of adopting.”

“Hmm. She doesn’t sound like anyone I have ever come across in my travels. But the world is big,” Thureneth allowed. “What was she doing in Harad?”

“Ah. She is the proprietor of a pleasure house,” Faelind said. “It is a-”

Thureneth coughed lightly. “Faelind. I know what a pleasure house is.”

In the awkward silence that followed, Faelind took another sip of his pear brandy. “Anyway. That is Raja. The greatest shock was not her appearance nor her profession. She knows. She knows the Prophecy of the Golden King. Or if she doesn’t know all of it – and I have to believe that she does – then she at least knows that Oropher will come here and that it is our intention to crown him.”

“That isn’t possible,” Thureneth whispered. She set aside her own glass of brandy and leaned forward to urgently meet Faelind’s eyes. “She couldn’t possibly know. Unless…”

“We don’t have a traitor,” Faelind said quietly. “Raja is part of a spy network and she has a spy in the Temple. Or had one. She was ambiguous on that point.”

There was silence in the room as Thureneth digested that. She didn’t ask the obvious question, for Faelind would have named the spy if he had been able to. As the two sat, neither speaking, Fanuilos sleeked into the room. She leapt onto the arm of the chair that Faelind was occupying but she very pointedly did not look at him, swishing her tail in his direction as she sat and washed her face with her paw. Faelind wasn’t offended. The cat had ignored him ever since he had got home earlier that evening, her lack of interest in him making very clear her dissatisfaction with his absence. Letting her sulk, Faelind looked back at his mother.

“This is dangerous,” Thureneth said finally, her voice low.

“It has the potential to be,” Faelind conceded. “But Raja was firm in assuring me that she wants the same thing as us: Oropher on the throne and the survival of his descendants. I believe that.”

“Of course she would say that if she was concealing ulterior motives!” Thureneth protested. “You cannot know for certain!”

“If you suddenly doubt my ability to judge truth and lies then that does not bode well for me,” Faelind rebuked his mother. “I was wary of Raja and I did not trust her at first. But I came to. She proved herself to me, and in my heart I judged that she spoke the truth. She is an ally, and in more ways than simply wanting Oropher to rule here. She is loyal to him, and to his family, though she says they do not yet know her. It seems to be a personal mission for her that they survive.”

“Why?”

Faelind shook his head at the suspicion in that little question. “She said that she is of a family that once did harm to Oropher’s family.”

Silence again as Thureneth stared at Faelind. Then she took a deep breath, and her expression became closed as she let it out. “I rather think that slaughtering the greater part of his family would fall into the category of _doing harm._ Am I to suppose that Fëanor had a secret daughter or granddaughter left out of the history books?”

“It was my thought too that she must have some connection to the Kinslaying,” Faelind said. “But she took offence to the idea that only the Noldor are capable of cruelty. Naneth, you came from Doriath. You grew up there amongst the nobility. I know that you rarely ventured back there after you settled here with my father, but you must have at least known of Oropher’s family.”

“I do not know what this Raja speaks of,” Thureneth interjected before Faelind could ask his question. “And I think the issue at this point is not what may have happened however many centuries ago but the rather more pressing issue of a spy in our forest. You trust Raja. Well and good. Do you feel comfortable knowing that we are spied upon and our secrets fed to others?”

“I doubt it matters at all now,” Faelind retorted with a short laugh. “If there is one spy there might be five and we wouldn’t be any wiser. But you’re right, I do trust Raja; if I trust her then I have no choice but to trust her spy, too. And has it not occurred to you that this entire discussion is irrelevant if the spy is long gone? I am not against informing Rethedir and Aermanis of this, but it is my feeling that we ought to carefully consider whether we divulge it to our entire circle. It may do more harm than good if our friends and colleagues begin looking askance at every apprentice and journeyman in their service.”

“You are right,” Thureneth acknowledged with some reluctance. “Rethedir will have the final word but it may be just as well to leave the matter alone. The other person that you met, then. Who is she?”

“He,” Faelind corrected. “His name is Baralin Ravondirion. There lies another connection to Oropher. Baralin is his great-uncle.”

Thureneth had gone still. Her glass of brandy shook in her hand and as she put it down it clattered on the table. “I see.”

“You know him,” Faelind said incredulously.

“No.”

Faelind’s expression cooled. “You are lying.”

“I-”

“You are _lying_.”

Thureneth closed her eyes as she exhaled slowly. “I _knew_ him. I do not know him now. We were both born into the Doriathrin nobility so we moved in the same circles. I considered him a friend. In truth, I wasn’t aware until this very moment that he even lived still. I thought him dead, Faelind.”

“He told me that his nephews believe him to be dead, too,” Faelind said briefly. “Why?”

“Because he disappeared. He just disappeared. He never came here. I believe the forest reminded him too much of Doriath,” Thureneth said, and her eyes sparked briefly with sorrow at the mention of the land where she had been born. “But sometimes on my travels our paths crossed and I would enjoy a few days in his company. The last time I saw him was some four hundred years ago. He had a small daughter then and his wife Anarien had not long given birth to a second little girl. It was usual for me to go ten or even twenty years without seeing Baralin. But as time went on and there were no signs of him or his family, I wrote to his estate in Harad. You see, he had been made an honorary Prince of Harad.”

“For saving a nobleman from a lion, I know,” Faelind replied. “He told me.”

“My letters went unanswered until finally his seneschal wrote to me with word that Baralin had not been on the estate since that seneschal’s predecessor had been in charge,” Thureneth continued. “Nobody knew what had become of him. I supposed that some misfortune must have befallen him and his family as they travelled. They had never stopped travelling even after the girls were born, for he and his Noldorin wife shared the same wanderlust. I grieved him, and Anarien and the little girls, as dead. I suppose that Oropher and his brother did the same.”

“Why would he not send word to his nephews that he was safe and well?” Faelind asked. “Or to you as his friend?”

“I cannot answer that without knowing where he has been and what befell him, but he must have his reasons,” Thureneth sighed. “Did you have sight of his wife? Or the girls?”

“No, and he made no mention of them,” Faelind replied. “Only a son.”

That made Thureneth lift her head sharply. “He didn’t have a son. Just two daughters. But…well.”

“You haven’t seen him for such a long time,” Faelind concluded.

“Just so. Anything could have happened in that time. I wonder…” Thureneth had picked up her glass of brandy and she stared into its depths, slowly swirling the rich amber liquid around. “Could Raja not have been Anarien? You said that she was dark of hair and eye?”

“Her eyes were green,” Faelind said. “Catlike.”

“Oh. Anarien had such dark eyes,” Thureneth said softly. “Well, I hope that Baralin is happy.”

Faelind considered that carefully, because he felt that his mother deserved a well thought out answer, but the truth was that he hadn’t spent enough time with Baralin to form much of an opinion one way or another. Finally, he said, “Baralin seemed like an elf who was where he needed to be at that time. He was working with the noble houses of Harad to topple the royal family and replace them with kinder rulers. If I had not killed Malik Jasim that night, Baralin would have done it. As it was, he took care of the Crown Prince.”

“I see.” Thureneth fell silent, and Faelind wasn’t sure if she did see or if she had just said it for something to say. He didn’t fill the silence, letting Thureneth dwell on her thoughts, and it was a minute or two before she spoke again. “Part of me wishes to write to Baralin, but I am not certain that my letter would be well received. It sounds as though he has changed from the ellon I knew so long ago. And if he wishes the people from his old life to believe him dead…well, perhaps I would be an unwelcome intruder in his new life.”

“I am sorry,” Faelind said honestly. “I wish that I had more answers for you. The only other thing I can say is that it was his intention to travel westwards to Lindon and then north to Forochel in search of this mysterious son of his. He did not say much, but it seems that the two of them somehow became separated at some point. Baralin’s purpose in life seems to be finding his son. Only when his path naturally winds back around to Harad does he appear there. So, even if you did send word, he may not receive it for some time.”

“Well, perhaps when the time is right for him he will no longer be a stranger to me.” Thureneth emptied her brandy glass without even grimacing at the heat as it hit the back of her throat, and then she rose fluidly. “It is late. I should return home.”

“Stay another night,” Faelind replied. “There is no urgency for you to leave. And thank you for looking after Luthavar for me. I missed him desperately, but it eased my mind to know that you were with him.”

“I wouldn’t have been anywhere else,” Thureneth said with a small smile. “Goodnight, ion-nín.”

Faelind nodded but a thought immediately occurred to him. “Naneth.” He met his mother’s laurel eyes as she turned to face him. “You said that Baralin never came here. But you took me travelling with you when I was young. You took me into the lands of Beleriand and all the way to Doriath where you made me play at being your page. You said that it was a funny game.”

“I am surprised that you remember it,” Thureneth replied. “You were very small.”

“Mostly I remember how angry my father was when we finally came home,” Faelind said. “I remember little of Doriath itself, and the names of the people that you took me to meet are long gone from my memory. All I see are somewhat blurred images of their faces in my mind. At the time it really was just a funny game, but as I grew older I understood that you had taken me to meet your family. _My_ family. You were young yourself and you were afraid that they might judge you for having a child so you lied to them and to me.”

“They would have judged me,” Thureneth said quietly. “Yes. I lied.”

Faelind didn’t let condemnation nor disapproval show on his face; he couldn’t, for he had long ago forgiven his mother and he didn’t judge her for the choices that she had made as a naïve young elleth. “Was Baralin part of that family? Was he one of the people that we met?”

“I am not sure why it has occurred to you to ask that question,” Thureneth replied slowly. “We met my father and his elder brother, and their mother and father. My grandparents. Your great-grandparents. Your great-grandfather took you to see some injured birds that he was healing. It is my belief that he suspected the truth but chose never to speak of it so as not to cause any upset or bring dishonour upon the family or turmoil to your life. I am grateful to him for that.”

“Yes. Then I didn’t meet Baralin at all?” Faelind asked. “He was not part of that family?”

“On my life, you didn’t meet him,” Thureneth promised. “But I am glad that you have met him now. Even if the circumstances were…”

“Unusual,” Faelind supplied wryly.

Thureneth smiled reluctantly. “Yes. Unusual. Goodnight, Faelind.”

“Goodnight,” he murmured in return, and as his mother left to seek her bed he wondered why she had lied.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Faelind is more than happy to close the door on his adventures in the south and put his journey firmly behind him as he settles back into life at home

When Faelind woke the morning after his return to Greenwood, he didn’t immediately remember where he was. The scent that he breathed in was not the citrus and spice of his room at Raja’s place and nor was it the clean but impersonal smell of a freshly made room at an inn that hundreds of people had passed through. It was the whiff of pine on a breeze through the window and bedding that had the smell of wildflowers. It was tea and toast drifting up the stairs and beckoning him to rise. It was _home_ and that made Faelind smile.

He rose and prepared for the day ahead, finding joy in the use of his own apple scented soap and in being able to choose any clothing he liked instead of having to recycle one of the outfits that he had taken on his journey. Lutha would have rolled his eyes at that and pointed out that most of Faelind’s clothing was in varying shades of dark so it couldn’t possibly be that exciting. Most of all there was pleasure in doing those little things under the blue eyes that gazed out at him from his wife’s portrait. He had avoided looking into her eyes the night before. The things he had done on his journey to the south, the person he had become…he was not proud of it all. But when he finally approached his beloved, his Midhaearien, and gently touched her cheek, her forever rosy pink smile blossomed in his mind and he felt peace settle over him.

Finally, when Faelind got downstairs, it was to find Lutha waiting impatiently at the breakfast table and Thureneth counselling him to patience. The way that Lutha’s eyes brightened as Faelind entered the room brought him great joy, and he greeted his son with a paternal kiss. “Good morning, my little boy,” he said, and nodded in greeting to his mother as well. “I hope I did not keep you waiting overlong.”

“You’re here now,” Lutha said. “I helped with making breakfast. And look, it’s all your favourites.”

“So it is,” Faelind agreed, with a suitably approving smile as he looked over the rack of toast with a dish of golden butter nearby, the vibrant strawberries halved and ready to be served with cream and a sprinkling of sugar, and smoked river salmon accompanied by soft cheese whipped to cream. “You did wonderfully, Luthavar,” Faelind added, taking his usual place at the head of the table.

The elfling smiled at that, and talk around the table was light and pleasant as they tucked into breakfast. Eventually Faelind’s curiosity got the better of him until there was nothing for it but to ask. “So,” he said, and there must have been something in his tone, for Lutha looked warily at him. “I have to enquire as to what precisely you did that made you think I might keep your gifts from you.”

“Is it important?”

“I would like to know.”

“Yes but do you have to?”

“You might as well tell him,” Thureneth said with a wry smile. “You know that you can’t possibly hide this forever.”

Lutha cast her a glance from under his lashes as if her betrayal was particularly disappointing. “You have to promise that I won’t be in trouble,” he said finally, looking at Faelind.

“I have missed you very much,” Faelind conceded graciously. “So yes, I suppose I can make that promise.”

Though he still looked doubtful, Lutha nodded slowly. He lifted one hand to the right side of his head and began pushing his hair back over his shoulder. It occurred to Faelind that just like the day before, Lutha’s long hair was loose and unbound. There was nothing unusual in that, but Faelind realised belatedly that it was odd for Lutha to wear his hair in the same style on consecutive days; he enjoyed all the different things that he could do with his hair, the braids that he could weave into it and the beads that he chose to complement his clothing, his eyes, his mood, the weather. But as Lutha’s hair fell back, Faelind knew at once what it had been hiding.

He rose and stepped around the table to Lutha’s side. Tilting his son’s head up, Faelind ignored Lutha’s grimace and stared at what he saw. “What is this?”

“An earring.”

“Yes, I see it is an earring, insolent elfling,” Faelind retorted, his gaze taking in the silver knot. “Naneth, did you give permission for this?”

“I did not,” Thureneth said calmly. “He is your son.”

“Remember you promised that I wouldn’t be in trouble,” Lutha pointed out. “Elder Faelind doesn’t break his promises.”

Faelind scowled at that and returned to his seat. He picked up his cup of fruit tea and regarded Lutha over it. “You know that it is _illegal_ for an elfling to receive a piercing or ink on their body until they reach their first _yen_ unless they have permission from a parent or guardian.”

“I do know that,” Lutha agreed. “Which is why I didn’t receive the piercing.”

“What does that mean?” Faelind asked suspiciously.

“To receive something means to be given it by another person,” Lutha explained. “So I didn’t get the piercing from another person. I got it from…well, from me.”

That made Faelind set his cup down and stare hard at his son. “You did that to yourself, little boy?”

“I did. And even though Nestorion was cross, he still checked the piercing to make sure that it didn’t go bad,” Lutha said hastily. “Ada, remember your promise and how much you missed me.”

“I regret that promise.” Faelind shook his head, grateful that his mother at least had the decency to hide her laughter behind her hand. “How did this come about, then?”

“Oh, it was one of the nights I stayed at Nestorion’s house,” Lutha replied. “Alphros and I were going to pierce our ears together, you see. Galad said absolutely not but he did get us the needle from Nestorion’s supplies. I went first and Alphros just about fainted. There wasn’t even that much blood. I suppose he didn’t like the needle going through. Anyway, Nestorion came to check on us because he had heard the _thud_ of Alphros hitting the ground. That was actually very funny. But once Nestorion had finished looking after Alphros and checking my ear – scolding us and calling us all sorts of foolish as he did so – he spanked all three of us and sent us to bed. That was mine and Alphros’ first time in real trouble with Nestorion. You wouldn’t know it because he’s so kind and gentle but he’s actually very good at…well, you know.”

Faelind rubbed his temples with a sigh. This son of his would never stop confounding him. When he looked up it was to see Lutha gazing at him expectantly with his expressive grey eyes. Unbidden, a smile reluctantly came to Faelind’s lips. “I _have_ missed you very much, my little boy.”

That made Lutha smile. “Do you like it?” he asked, lightly touching the silver earring.

“I like it well enough even if I do not like the dangerous way in which you obtained it. And just so that we are clear, Luthavar…” Faelind met his son’s eyes. “I would have granted you permission.”

When breakfast was done a short while later, Thureneth went to the guest bedroom that she had occupied to begin gathering her belongings for her return to her own home. As for Faelind and Lutha, they left the house for a walk through the woods. Faelind had already decided that he would wait until next week before starting his work again. After a month away, he owed it to Lutha to spend time with him. Aside from what he owed, he _wanted_ to spend time with Lutha. Their ultimate destination was Nestorion’s to discuss the matter of taking Lutha off his nightly sleeping draught, but they walked there in a roundabout sort of way, enjoying the morning sunshine and the chatter of birds in the trees above them.

“Would you have really let me get a piercing if I had asked permission?” Lutha asked, when a lull came in their light conversation.

“I really would,” Faelind replied briefly. “You have autonomy over your body.”

Lutha wrinkled his nose. “I don’t know that word.”

“It means that you have the right to say what does or does not happen to your body,” Faelind explained.

“Now I do,” Lutha ventured.

“You always did,” Faelind said quietly. “You may not have always had the ability to choose but you did always have the right. That you were not allowed to exercise that right is a reflection on the ones who did you harm.”

Lutha nodded quietly, and then he took the sort of deep breath that Faelind knew meant he was forcefully pushing those thoughts aside. “May I ask a question that might sound disrespectful even though I don’t mean it that way?”

“Go on, then,” Faelind allowed dryly.

“Thank you. If I have the right to say what happens to my body then why would I need permission to get a piercing?” Lutha asked.

Faelind always braced himself for his son’s questions but there was no need for it that time. That question was something he could answer easily enough. “That law exists to protect you, Luthavar. It ensures that you have an opportunity to think about what is quite a large decision whilst giving your parent or guardian a chance to ensure that you go about it safely. Many years ago, an elleth young enough that she had not yet developed the full immunity of our people developed an infection of the blood which was linked to unsafe piercing practices. The law was brought in because of it.”

“Did she die?” Lutha asked warily.

“She did not. So grateful was she to the healers who saved her life that she dedicated herself to learning their craft so that she might repay the debt,” Faelind replied. “I am sure you will agree that Elder Nestaeth has repaid the debt many times over.”

“Elder Nestaeth? Really?”

“Really.”

Lutha let out a little laugh under his breath, and he shook his head admiringly once he had devoted a few minutes to marvelling over that new discovery. “There was just one more thing. And it’s not a question. It’s something that I thought about a lot while you were away and…”

Faelind had stopped and lifted his hand. “This sounds important.”

“A bit,” Lutha conceded.

“Come then,” Faelind said, putting his hand on his son’s shoulder and guiding him off the road. “We shall sit and discuss it properly.”

Not far back from where they had stopped was a picnic glade that was usually busy later in the day though at this time of the morning it was empty. A handful of picnic tables, each one decorated with a different woodland theme, were dotted around it. The first one that they came to had foxes etched into the tabletop. Faelind sat on one side and watched carefully as Lutha sat opposite him. “So what have you been thinking so hard about?”

“Well,” Lutha said, after taking a deep breath, “I don’t know if now is the right time to be thinking about this sort of thing but I’ve given a lot of thought to what I want to do in the future. You know, as a profession.”

Faelind was careful to conceal his surprise as he nodded. He wasn’t sure what he had expected but it hadn’t been that. “I see. And what are your thoughts?”

“I wouldn’t want to be a hunter like Alphros and I don’t have the patience to be a healer like Galad,” Lutha replied. “I thought maybe if I learned all about the law from you it would be a nice way for us to spend a lot of time together, but I think that I would just get so angry all the time if I heard unfair things that upset me. So I’ve decided that what I would really like to do is study with Daernana Thureneth and make a career for myself in trade.”

“That would involve some studying with me anyway, for there are certain legalities involved with trade and commerce,” Faelind said. “But what brought you to this decision?”

“My past,” Lutha said quietly. He lowered his eyes and traced a carved fox tail with his fingertip. “I was good at stealing and sneaking. I was even better at making deals and securing trade. I was really good at that. But the only thing that I had to trade was myself. I’m not proud of that, Ada. I want to put my skills to use but I want to do it in a way that finally makes me proud. And you.”

“Well, as to that,” Faelind said, putting his hand over Lutha’s, “I am already proud and always proud of you, Luthavar. I am also proud of you for having given this such careful thought and for reaching the conclusions that you have. If it is your wish to pursue a path similar to your Daernaneth Thureneth then we will both help you on that path. I trust you have spoken with her about it?”

“Yes. She said that she would be pleased to have me apprentice to her but that I may not be able to start right away,” Lutha replied. “She said that I would have to discuss it with you.”

Faelind nodded to that. “You have not yet finished your schooling but I believe we could make it work. You no longer study mathematics, so there is one less subject to take up your time.” It had quickly become apparent to Faelind and Elder Angoliel that while Lutha’s education had been sorely lacking, his inherent skill with numbers had been remarkable. The sums that he had been able to calculate in his head, without need for paper or counting apparatus, had astounded both of them. Indeed, it had not taken Angoliel much time at all to decree that there was very little, mathematically speaking, that she could teach him.

“You will need to continue lessons in history and lore, but your studies of geography and languages might be included in your apprenticeship,” Faelind added thoughtfully. “Perhaps two days a week for lessons and two for apprenticing.”

“Would Elder Angoliel mind?” Lutha asked.

“I doubt it,” Faelind said. “Combining schooling with an apprenticeship is not unheard of. Some elflings even mix formal education with helping in their family business should it be required of them. No, I see no reason why Angoliel should argue against this, Luthavar. We will speak with her when next you have lessons.”

Lutha smiled but it didn’t stay in place for long, chased away by the dark turn his thoughts had taken. “Will Greenwood ever trade again with Harad? Because then I might have to go back there.”

“A lot will have to happen in Harad before they approach foreign lands for trade,” Faelind said slowly. “At least lands that lie far beyond their borders. Years ago, yes, we had trade with Harad and perhaps one day we shall again. But that is a long way off, my little boy. Should you not wish to go there if or when the time comes, you will not go. And should you go there, you will not go alone.”

“Would you come with me?”

“Of course.”

“I can’t see you travelling so far and to such a hot place,” Lutha remarked.

Faelind just smiled wryly at that. “I expect I could manage. Now come, let us continue on and visit Nestorion.”

“Can we get lunch after we’ve seen him?” Lutha asked. “I’m so hungry.”

“It is only ten o’clock and you had breakfast not two hours ago,” Faelind replied mildly.

Lutha shrugged. “Brunch, then. I’m a growing boy.”

“Yes, very well,” Faelind said, with a roll of his eyes and a sigh for the fact that he could deny his son very little. “What am I to do with you, Luthavar?”

“Love me,” Lutha suggested.

“That,” Faelind said softly, as they rose from the table, “is never in question.”

_The End_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for following this second story in what I have begun referring to as the Lutha Trilogy. I am especially grateful as it is so OC-centric. The third and final part will be coming soon!


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